


Bang Bang

by Ladyboo



Series: Blood tastes like candy from your lips [1]
Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Consensual Violence, Consensual sexual violence, Don!Jensen, Gang Violence, M/M, Machiavellian world, Mafia world, Man for hire!Cougar, Mild Gore, Sexual Content, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Underage Sex, orphan Jensen, racial content, soul mates, temporary underage sex really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:02:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3437978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a gunman for hire, Cougar was paid to do a lot of things. Keep his head down, keep his guns clean, and never ask questions. It was one simple job, shoot the Russian, because he was supposed to kill a Russian for some reason, and it should have been easy. He shot the Russian, damn good shot if he did say so himself, but he hadn't planned on getting shot, finding his soul mate, or getting plunged head first into the garish scheme of things that the Chinese had planned for the rest of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is that new thing that I mentioned in Sunshine and Rain, and it's a favorite of mine. I absolutely love the movie of The Losers, and the comic made me cry, but I've wanted to do something like this for a little while. And with some help from my beautiful beta and a swanky, dirty grooveshark playlist that gets played on repeat, I've got this Machiavellian beauty to give to you all. I've uh, been reading The Prince, because yaknow, why not read up on some sophisticated world domination? Enjoy darlings, and even if you don't, please tell me what you think!

Body stretched out, the warmth that the sun had given to the rooftop pressed through his soft grey shirt and his jeans. The hat upon his head protected his eyes from the glare of it, but the rest of his body leeched at the warmth it found, greedy for anything that the spring sun had to offer. His skin felt loose from the heat, but his mind was just as sharp as he needed it to be.

Tipping his head down, Cougar watched through the scope of his rifle as the men, dozens of stories below, went about their business. The glass on the windows gave a slight haze to the image, but practice made it easy to compensate for what many other snipers would have considered a distraction. Letting his breath out slowly, the young Hispanic man felt his body adjust to the careful deflation of his lungs, and his spine arched accordingly, adjusting for the pressure.

Jaroslav Markovic was a lower level man, as far as political position went in Russian territory, but he had moved up in leaps and bounds within the last few months. The sudden shift in power had been enough to gain the attention of Cougar’s employers, though he didn’t know why the English would give a damn about what the Russians did. Their hands should be full with the business with the Irish; with the way that the French, Germans and Spaniards had grouped together in a triumvirate that would have made their ancestors proud; with how the Netherlands and the Turkish seemed hell bent on destroying one another, or with the peace the Chinese seemed intent to uphold with everyone.

Cougar didn’t get paid to think, though, he got paid to shoot people.

Another breath, and he lined up perfectly with Markovic’s head, catching a full frontal of the way that the man’s mouth moved when he ate. The glass would offer no resistance against the hollow points that he had carefully filled his chamber with, and his finger rested easy on the trigger.  He squeezed on the exhale, an easy sort of motion that betrayed the way that the gun rocked slightly back into his shoulder from where it was propped on the cement lip of the rooftop.

The back of Markovic’s head proved unable to handle the force of the bullet, and a splash of red and pale pink brain bits sprayed onto the person, and the wall, behind the man. Cougar tore his eyes away as the body started to fall, because his job was done, and there was no advantage to be found in staying in his perch. The rain that had been threatening to fall all afternoon finally started, and he felt the bite of the droplets on his hands as he unscrewed the scope from its hub, sliding the rifle into its nondescript case.

The fact that he was looking down was the only thing that let him see the little red laser pointer where it hovered over his heart.

-

The skin on his side, stretched thin where it pressed along the curve of his ribs, burned with a brilliant sort of fire. The ache of it was sharp and bright, it ran hot along the bullet-torn flesh, and the way that his shirt clung to the wound did nothing to help the sick, pulsing feel of it. The shirt he wore was ruined, if not from the bullet hole then from the blood that tacked it to his side where it ran from the wound. He liked that shirt, damn it.

The rain that fell upon his skin felt cold, blisteringly so in comparison to the flaming fever hot burn that had taken over his body. It dripped along the exposed skin of his hands, sliding steadily down the brim of his worn cowboy hat. Wet and cool, it wormed its way under the collar of the jacket he had thrown on in hopes to blend in. Jostling along his back, the converted guitar case was just as wet, though he hoped his hastily stowed rifle remained dry.

There had been no time to put the weapon away with his usual care, and he had just barely managed to remove the scope to make sure the weapon fit in its case. He could feel it, in the wound on his side, every time his burden shifted, and Cougar scowled. He scowled at how the weapon moved, and he scowled at the rain that poured down on him, though the Chinese didn't seem to mind it. They were chattering as if nothing was wrong, as if the rain didn’t exist and a desperate man didn’t wind his way through their crush with a concealed bullet in his side.

No one ventured unbidden into Chinese Territory, not if they could help it anyway.

The people had no value for personal space, and they had no reason to fear, for even if they weren’t with the _Tàng_ , they knew without question that they were under his protection. They gossiped loudly, and were content to do as they pleased regardless of the weather, whether it be flooding rains or punishing heat.  In the central part of the territory, the heart of their business, it was impossibly easy to get lost within the tall buildings, with their winding structures and their thin alleys.  Stories up, catwalk bridges crisscrossed between the buildings, connecting them with stairs and handrails to keep pedestrians from falling to their death.  Filled with bright neon lights, glowing red and golden lanterns, the night was just as bright as the day with artificial light, and the only way to tell when the sun went down was when the lanterns flickered to life.

Cougar knew he was lost, but that meant that the people following him were lost, too.

There was reason to hope, then, (even though the thought of being lost in Chinese territory left a bitter burn on his tongue) that he could lose them in the crowd. Hand pressed discretely to his side, the pressure did nothing to help the burning, but there was a quiet nagging that reminded him that at least the blood flow would slow down.  No one even seemed to care if he elbowed them on his way past, for the talking didn’t stop and none of them bothered to move out of his way, regardless.

Turning a corner, the alley that he found himself in was a tight fit thing, just barely wide enough for his shoulders. He had to press an elbow in though it was difficult, even for him, to tell if it was to keep from jostling the pressure on his side, or to avoid the people around him. Despite the tight space, they still seemed to mill about, mouths flapping and their dark eyes bright. There were doors on either side of the alley around him, steps up and ledges down, and it was dizzying to think that people did business out of this kind of space.

He could still hear them behind him, though, no matter how much they had fallen back. Their words were thick things, as if spoken around mouthfuls of their precious potato water, and they stood out in deep toned slurs against the sharp sounds of Mandarin in his ears.

Ducking down slightly, Cougar took the little ledge that was before him with a leap of faith, feeling the impact of his feet on the concrete in the tear on his side, the jostle of his weapon along the line of his back. The rain made everything slick, and his world slid for a moment when his boots refused to make contact like they should have.  Righting himself was easy enough though, and he did it with the sort of practice that succeeded in making the motion appear effortless, and all the more easy for any watchers to ignore.

A duck around another corner, and the long shapes of the buildings cast dark shadows upon everything that he saw. The world was darker, dulled down without the direct flare of neon overhead, and his eyes strained in the dripping darkness.  Pausing for a moment, the Russian voices sounded a little farther behind, but it was impossible to tell if the softer tones were from distance, or if they were drowned out due to the rain.

It was that pause that kept him from being smacked in the face when one of the doors opened.

The figure that gazed back at him was harshly silhouetted by the glowing lights from within the building. The sharp scent of spices and cooking meat washed over him, and the darkness left no doubt that his own face was just as shadowed. The figure was shorter than him, slighter than him, and there was a bright glint of glass reflecting from the boy’s face. Dirty fingers reached out for him, without hesitation, and it was simple shock that kept Cougar in place as those fingers wrapped into his jacket.

The boy turned on his heel, and the overwhelming brightness of the light blinked out not only his face, but also any characteristics of his person in general. The door slammed shut behind them, from its own weight, and the sounds of the kitchen were loud within his ears.  None of the noise or motion stopped though; none of the other people in the kitchen seemed to care that there was a bleeding, foreign man within their midst.

Dizziness from both his pain and the sudden turn of events made his thoughts slow, and a sluggish sort of panic overtook him as Cougar tried to remember if he had heard stories of cannibalism in Chinese territory. 

Another door was opened, and the boy that led him gave a harsh pull, before shoving Cougar forward. He stumbled, one hand going out to catch himself against the cardboard box before him while the other tried to keep pressure on his side. The door creaked behind him as it closed, and the boy’s image was lost before he could manage to turn around.  His final words rattled between his ears though, stilted and sharp in Standard Mandarin, thick on his tongue, and Cougar was left with them as he stared at the inside of the walk-in refrigerator door.

"Stay here and be quiet.  You're safe."

And he was left there, cushioned where he had fallen on a series of bags of bamboo shoots.  Nestled between the kohlarbi and the half-thawed duck carcasses, the sharp tang of onions and iced meat clung to the inside of his nose, and the blood that squelched beneath his elbow was not his own. The air was cool, setting a chill across his skin as it threatened to freeze the rain that clung to his flesh and clothes.

He must have looked a fool, reclined in a refrigerator and subdued by a boy he hadn't really seen, and Cougar had no clue as to how long he sat there.

Long enough for his head to dip down, at least, hat sliding forward so that it fell over his eyes.  HIs side throbbed with a vicious sort of heat, and the rest of his body burned with it as the sensation spread in a spider web pattern from his side. The cool air of the fridge interior had settled against his skin, doing its best to chase away the hot pain, and it had set a sort of sleepy relaxation across his bones.

The rattling sound of the latch filled the room, and his head jolted up as his fingers spasmed. There were no weapons in sight, nothing that he could use in hopes of defending himself, with his rifle caught behind his back. Fingers wrapping around the closest object, Cougar pulled the makeshift weapon before him, and it was only when the door opened that he stared down at the limp duck that he held by the neck.

"Can you not fondle the produce?  I don't know if you've got a thing for that, but I eat the food we make here."

Head lifting once more, his hat was in the way, and he nudged it out of his eyes with his wrist.The boy was a grease smeared thing, with his hair slicked up to one side and the apron he wore stained with blood.  Bottle bottom glasses outlined bright eyes, and they blinked at him with a wide eyed kind of fascination.  He only had a moment to try and appreciate the startled look on the boy’s face, because a different sort of pain swept over him. His left arm pulsed with it; a sharp, cutting burn that felt as if it went all the way to the bone.

Grunting, Cougar doubled over, yanking at the sleeve of his jacket, barely hearing similar sounds of pain from the boy.  Deep gouges had sliced their way into the flesh of his arm, in bands around his knuckles as well as circlets around his wrist and upper forearm, and the blood began to flow with a lazy sludge. His stomach leapt into his throat, body protesting at the additional pain, and he tipped sideways with a dizzy nausea as the world went dark, and as the gasping sounds the boy made were muffled to his ears.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

-

Cougar came to slowly, sometime later, with a dull throb of pain that inched its way through his body like it had nothing better to do and it wasn’t in any hurry to do that, either. There was a fuzziness to his head, a fluff of feeling that hadn’t been there before, but it was easy to recognize the effects of some sort of drug. His body was slow with it; from the way that it took him too long to find feeling in his fingertips, to the way that he couldn’t seem to find the bottoms of his feet.

The surface below him was soft, airy, with a kind of indulgence that he _never_ allowed himself. It countered the rush of panic that did its best to worm though him, and the scent of clean linen and something he didn’t quite recognize seeped into his nose. There were no restraints at his wrists, yet there seemed to be no need for them, because he felt as weak as a kitten and then, Cougar fought the urge to scowl.

His hat was gone.

A slight shift of weight showed that his shirt was gone too, as well as the wet denim of his jeans. The only things separating him from the soft cotton sheets over his body were a pair of boxers, and he couldn’t pull his thoughts together enough to know if they were his own or not.  His skin now ached with nothing more than a faint itch and it was only that mild discomfort, mixed with the quiet echo of a Cantonese lullaby in the background, which reminded him of where he was.

“Finally, awake?”

Forcing himself to relax at the sound of that voice, once more, Cougar kept his face as slack as he could manage. His body protested against the comfort of the bed beneath him, the softness of the sheet above him, because what kind of torture was this? Did they plan to cosset him until he died?

There was a faint rustling sound from his right, shifting fabric and crackling papers and, apparently, there would be no relief for him. He could hear the quiet sounds of the boy’s throat clicking, as he swallowed, and his Standard words were still slurred and yet sharper than they should be. The bed dipped at his side, and Cougar’s eyes shot open as his body slid with the movement.

“Good morning, ‘Tall, Dark and Hopeless’, nice to see you’re back with me. Was getting real tired of having an unconscious man in my bed, no matter how yummy you are.”

The boy looked nothing like what his voice leant to with its Asian based tones, for he was a brilliant, golden sight. There was no trace of culture from any of the Asian areas, for his eyes were wide things and his features were sharp. The skin that stretched across his bones was thin, a honey-tinted color that went well with the wheat blonde spikes of his hair. There was no grease on his skin, this time around, though the strands of his hair glistened with the droplets of water that clung to them. His mouth was full, an exaggerated pout of flesh that kept its form even when his lips moved and, behind his glasses, his eyes were…

His eyes were green; the soft, pale kind of green that Cougar remembered from the laurel funeral wreaths when he was a child in Spanish territory.

Cougar kept his own lips pressed tight together, though, regardless of how much his body seemed intent on responding to the pretty picture that the boy made. Where he leaned forward, the wide neck of his shirt had fallen off of one thin shoulder, and there was a faint flush of pink along the crest of his cheeks and the narrow shelf of his collar bones. His skin was flushed, and his lips were red stained and, if the situation had been any different, Cougar would have let himself indulge in that, for the boy’s skin looked soft, and that mouth would look so damn pretty wrapped –

Fingers snapped in front of his face, the clicking sound they made sharp in the quiet hum of the room. It took his eyes a moment to focus, and while the kid looked a little more flushed than he had before, there was a bright harshness in his eyes that spoke volumes. The situation was out of his control, and Cougar had lost it long before he had started to think about how good the boy would look, dewy with pleasure and debauched.

No doubt it had been out of his control since that door had opened and the kid had plucked him out of the alley.

“Stitched up your side; you can thank me later when you feel like being talkative. Bullet went through and through, and I’m not even going to bother asking you why you were shot.  Not my body, sadly, and not my place.”

His hands were spindly, with wrists that managed to look like he hadn’t grown into them and thin all at once.  Slender fingers with slender knuckles, the long digits spread wide when he talked. Both of his hands were held up, and the tips of his fingers waggled a little in the air as he spoke.

“Patched up your arm, too, you can thank me for that sometime. You aren’t very talkative, are you?  Yeah, whatever, also I got you doped up nice and pretty - don’t look at me like that, you shit!”

Staring at the boy with wide eyes, it took Cougar longer than he was comfortable with to notice that his face had moved. His expression had shifted from the habitual blank stare to something else, and he could feel the way that his own eyebrows had started to climb up his forehead, mouth slack.  “Don’t hate on the good drugs, you should be kissing the ground that they walk on. Codeine is your best friend right now, sir, I would kill you for it if I wasn’t allergic.”

The boys chest rose sharply, as if he were pausing for breath, and it was with a startled sort of horror that Cougar realized that was exactly what he was doing.

“Russians are gone, by the way, you’re welcome for us getting rid of them.  Should skin your tanned ass, though, bringing Russians into Chinese home territory. What the hell were you thinking?  That you could lose them with the people?  Be happy we didn’t eat them, they’re soggy.  Shit, be happy we didn’t eat _you_ ; you look like you’d be crunchy.  I’m joking, by the way, because you know, you’re a Latin, and you look kinda burnt crispy compared to the rest of us?  Yeah, whatever. Anyway, the Russians are gone, and you should be happy to know that you didn’t land on the bags of bull penises…penis…peni…whatever, you didn’t land on thawed bull giblets when I shoved you into the fridge.”

His hands moved in time with his mouth, as if the words he wanted to say weren’t enough without the gestures to shore them up.  It was dizzying, to listen to the kid go, because it seemed like he had no intention of ever stopping.  His words didn’t falter, and his face didn’t flush further, but he was obviously out of breath in the way that he took a quiet gasp for air at the end of his rant.  At the sound of it, something in his gut clenched, and Cougar watched the boy carefully with dark eyes.

The pink of his tongue peaked out, swiping across his full bottom lip, and the flesh there took on a saliva-slick shine from the contact. One hand pushed up his glasses, the boy having fallen silent to catch his breath. The time it had taken for his little speech was enough to let Cougar become aware of the tug of flesh in his side.  A tip of his head made the entire world spin, the dark gray of the room’s walls swam sharply, and his fingers clenched in the sheets.  Bright, blood-orange colored things, the material was soft to the touch, clean, and he pulled at them until he could see the naked skin of his side.  A white bandage stood out in stark contrast to the dark, sun kissed skin, and small mercies meant that the boxers he wore were a pair of his own.

“Dammit, stop that, you need to lay still!” Movement from the boy drew his attention back up, and Cougar watched with widened eyes as he leaned forward. His body stretched out, that dark brown shirt slipped a little further along his flesh, and his fingers wrapped around the bandages on Cougar’s left arm. “I just did this again, I really don’t need you fucking it u-“

Fingers wrapping around the front of the boys shirt, Cougar pulled, keeping the pressure hard. A few seconds later and the boy was sprawled across his chest, the warmth of him a delicious thing that chased away the memory of the bite of cool spring rains. The fingers that grasped at the bandage on Cougar’s arm spasmed, and his breath left him in a quiet gust. Mouth nuzzling at the boy’s ear, Cougar spoke slowly, his words soft things, threatening in the quiet of the room.

 _“_ _Dónde está mi sombrero?_ ”   

From his position, Cougar was able to watch the way that the boy’s throat worked when he swallowed; the way that the muscle in his jaw jumped when his teeth clenched. His skin was soft beneath Cougar’s lips, and his scent was a soft thing like a citrus patch on the cusp of being overripe, but the spices from the kitchen still clung to him just as sharply. His weight was a welcomed thing, and it was with that realization that Cougar held the boy close.

“I don’t speak sexy Latin-based whatzit, sorry Bub, and I totally don’t mind this… trust me, because I really don’t… but if you don’t stop giving me whiplash between lust and exasperation, I’m going to lobotomize you.”

Blinking, Cougar pushed back into the bed, pushing at the boy in turn until he could see his face once more.  His cheeks were flushed, his pale green eyes were bright, and the weight of his glasses had moved them to slip down his nose, to hang precariously upon the upturned tip. Slowly, he released the boy, and watched as the blond shifted his weight around. Instead of removing himself completely though, it seemed that he had no shame, for he simply swung his legs around so that he settled his weight low across Cougar’s hips.

Knobby knees brushed against the upper curve of Cougar’s ribs, on either side of his torso, and it felt natural to brush his thumbs across the boys flesh, through his sweatpants.

Head tilted, the boy stared down at him, with a brilliant sort of knowing ease on his face.  Easy, as if he wasn’t straddling a complete stranger and in far more danger than he could ever have anticipated. The boy suspected the truth though, at least partially, because he had pulled Cougar out of the night, had stitched up his side and had stripped him down to the bare necessities before stuffing him in a bed.  And he looked proud of himself where he sat; regal and at ease in a position of power that was just barely that, with Cougar’s hands on his knee, his thigh.

“Where is my hat?”

A faint coo fell from the boy’s lips, a condescending sort of thing, and his own hands curled. Nails digging into the boys flesh, he held tight, only to release him as if burned.  A faint echo of sharp, prickling pain had burst within his own legs in the places where he had held, and the boy looked smug.  Smug and amused, intrigued even, and if he hadn’t been so muddled by the drugs within his system, Cougar would have tossed the boy off of him.

“Over there.”  One hand flung out, and the boy’s fingers waggled in the air once more.  Head turned, Cougar’s eyes followed the gesture, keeping the child’s face within his periphery. Across the room, his hat lay along the top of a black dresser, balanced between a stack of books and a spiraling bamboo plant.  Out of reach.  Cougar had no chance of being able to get at it himself, and he was left at the mercy of the boy above him. “But you won’t be needing that, right now.  You’ve probably got something you want to ask me, though, don’cha?”

Lips shut tightly, once more, Cougar watched as the boy balanced himself, almost at ease with having someone caught between his thighs, as if he were _used_ to it. There was power in those muscles though, he could feel them where they clenched around his hips, and Cougar held himself taut against the temptation to test the strength within those thighs, to see what sort of dexterity the boy had.

Those full lips pulled into a pout, pushing them out further, and it was with a wash of want that Cougar desired to drag his teeth across that puff of flesh.  The thighs that bracketed him tightened, the boy’s chest expanded, and the bright eyes that gazed down at him looked blown, pupils larger than they had originally been.  A hand smacked down on his chest, though, the contact sharp enough that it rattled the pulling stitches that he could feel in his side, and Cougar clenched his jaw, baring his teeth at the boy.

“Stop it!  You’re positively hopeless. How am I going to get anything done with you around?   _Huáng Tiān Shàngdì,_ go back to sleep!  I like you better when you aren’t thinking about jumping my bones.  Not that I mind you wanting to jump my bones, because have you looked in a mirror lately, I’d just really you rather not right now, because I’m trying to be all suave and smart and get shit down. Dammit, if you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to shove a sock in your mouth, and I can’t promise if it’ll clean or not.”

His long fingers wrapped around the hinge of Cougar’s jaw, shaking his face in a way that only happened because Cougar let him. He went easy with the motions, more amused than he probably had a right to be, and he watched the boy with warm dark eyes.  It was only then that he caught sight of the marks on the boy’s right arm, the crusted over bands of dark flesh and the blood.

Grasping at the boys arm, he pulled it away from his face, brows furrowing as he inspected the mangled flesh. On either side of each middle knuckle, on those long fingers, there were dark bands that clung like rings. Further up, there was one around the curve of the boy’s wrist, dark and as thick as Cougar’s thumb, while the one further up was twice as thick, where it clenched just beneath the joint of his elbow. The skin around them was red, puffy with irritation and a dull pain, while the crusted parts of the cuts themselves were dark, blackened things.

“Oh, _now_ you notice the epic matching tattoos. Yeah, we’ve got those, they look sorta tribal, and I’m not sure what we can do with them, but we’re stuck with them.”  Fingers tapped at his chest, his shoulder, and drew Cougar’s attention to the red stained bandages around his own left arm. “Yours are taking longer than mine to heal probably because, ya know, there’s a bit of a hole in your side, but I’m sure that’s just a technicality. Nothing to be worried about; they aren’t infected, but they might burn because I dumped like, a bottle of peroxide on them, never mind the amount that I flooded into your side. You’re all squeaky clean, you classy fucker, no sign of infection here.”

Fingers brushing gently against the flesh of the boy’s arm, he could feel the burn of it then, faint along his own, undamaged, right arm. An echo of feeling, more of a phantom pain than anything else, but it was there all the same. Cougar tried to sooth his fingers across the warm flesh, concern that he hadn’t expected curling in his gut at the thought of the boy being hurt.

“Hey, I’m alright, it doesn’t really hurt.  Just itches a bit…?”

It took longer than it should have, but when he looked back up, Cougar found those green eyes staring back at him once more. The boy’s thumb swished softly across the hinge of his jaw, and the point of contact was a warm, shimmering thing that made his skin pleasantly numb.

“Carlos. My name is Carlos Alvarez.”

The smile that the boy gave him was a vibrant, burning thing, and it sent a spiral of content through him, because he had caused that smile.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Carlos. As you’ve probably gathered, I’m your soulmate, and my name is Jacob Jensen, but you can call me Jake.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I like this story, and I'm pretty proud of what I plan to do with it, and I hope that you all like it too! And thank you to the people that left little comments, I enjoy those very much, and even if it isn't a nice comment, I like hearing what you guys think about this story. So, sending this out to you while I listen to my girlfriend complain about her French 420 prof, this is more amusing than it should be.  
> Due to the prompting of my lovely Beta, I'm going to put this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0eQL5R3bw4 here, because mood music for this entire chapter? Bad Things by Jace Everett, trust me, I listened to it while writing, so I would know.  
> In other news, I hope you like this chapter, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say! And fixing the stupid little word errors that ao3 is going to put in after I post this...

The boy was so pleased with himself that it ached a little, to look at him.  His grin was soft, his eyes were bright, and there was a manic sort of excitement about him dancing under the freckles painted on his skin. The thighs on either side of his hips trembled beneath his hands, and Cougar petted them in an absent minded motion, but it didn't seem that either nerves or exertion were the cause of the trembling that blanketed the boy’s entire body; it was clearly a buzz of restless energy that caused him to shudder as he did.

The hand that held his jaw kept up the soft, swishing motion of a thumb against his skin.  Cougar found himself leaning into the touch and found, with a pleasant, slow wave of sensation, that he didn't feel much like _Cougar_ in that moment.  There was no target to track, nothing to shoot. Relaxation settled in his bones, and he found he could set down that mantle, for a little while at least.

He could let himself be Carlos, and the realization came and went like a heady exhale.

He could let himself be Carlos, as he hadn't been for the multitude of months that he had been employed by the English, and this was a different mindset all together.  After so long without words - whether it was by his own choice, or simply because it was safer for marksmen to keep their opinions to themselves - they were difficult to find.  He had never talked much as a child; not since the murders, and the orphanage and the silent rage and, now that he was given the chance, Carlos found he didn't know what words to use.  His throat ached with verses unsaid, and they burned at his tongue, fought soundlessly against his teeth to be free.

So, instead of speaking, Carlos slowly ran his fingers over the bunched muscles of the boy’s thighs.  Trailing them up, the sweatpants wrinkled under his touch, and his thumb brushed against the faded brown of the loose shirt.  Jake arched his back, just so, when one of Carlos' hands slid beneath the soft fabric, and his skin was warm, smooth to the touch. His hand felt huge, where it worked its way up the curve of the boy’s side, and Jake seemed so slight, so small beneath the curve of his fingers.

Digits spreading, the shirt snagged on his wrist and scrunched up there, revealing golden skin as he went.  A glance up showed that Jake had caught his bottom lip between his teeth, and his green eyes were wide where he stared down at Carlos. The flush along his face was bright on his cheeks, and there were splotches of it visible on the skin on his chest, his abdomen.

One hand cupped the smooth, supple skin where his under defined chest swelled slightly, and he grasped the slight weight of it with his fingers. Thumb curling up, Carlos watched Jake’s face as his nail caught the edge of the nipple, just there, and that full mouth fell open.  A quiet sound fell from between his lips, and one of Jake’s hands covered his own, pressing Carlos’ nails into his skin, roughening his touch.  Another gasp, a sweet breathy sound, and Jake’s head tipped back, exposing the long line of his throat.

The slide of his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and Carlos growled lowly at the sight.

Free hand going up, his thumb brushed across the side of Jake’s throat, and the palm of his hand curled within the short strands of the boy’s hair.  Pulling at him, the hand upon his chest kept Jake from falling forward too quickly.  His weight pressed down on Carlos’ chest all the same, both hands braced on either side of his dark head. The boy’s eyes were wide behind the shine of his glasses, his lips dewy, and they felt lustrous against his own when Carlos crushed their mouths together.

Against his mouth, Jake let out a quiet moan, the sound of it getting lost against Carlos’ insistent tongue and chapped lips.  The hand that had been pressed against the boy’s chest slid, gliding along the long line of his back to play with the waistband of his soft sweatpants. The skin that he found was warm, and Jake panted against his mouth while their lips slid together. The boy’s teeth caught against his bottom lip, dragging out the flesh with the sight causing a delicious drip of heat down Carlos spine and pulling a groan from his chest.

Hand slipping lower, his fingers were possessive as they moved along the taut globes of Jake’s rump, and the boy’s eyes opened wide. Staring into that bright green gaze, Carlos pulled his mouth free with a wet sound while his fingers slid between the boy’s cheeks. A sharp sound left Jake’s chest then, a whimpering sound that shivered in the air. The pad of his index finger delved deeper, the calloused skin dragging, rough and dry, against the tight whorl of his hole, and the reaction Carlos received was beautiful.

Dark lashes falling, Jake’s fingers moved to his shoulders and his nails clenched there, tight.  His full mouth fell open in a soft ‘o’ of pleasure, and the moan that slipped from his lips was a low, drawn out sound. The thighs on either side of his hips clenched, and Jake pressed his weight back, causing the tip of that finger to press hard against the soft opening, barely breaching the space.  The motion took the pressure of Jake’s weight off his hips, the plumping flesh of his cock, and Carlos growled, pressed that hand in father. The force pulled Jake back towards him and Carlos kept his grip rough, while his hips ground up sharply, and Jake’s moan was a breathy thing, puffed out softly into the shell of his ear.

Heavy hands pressed against his shoulders, Jake used his body as leverage to push himself up, and the shift in weight caused everything to move.  Their hips ground together, the sweatpants bunched under the swell of the boy’s ass, and the change in pressure caused Carlos’ finger to slide up to the second knuckle, rough and dry.  Perfect, if the way that Jake’s head tipped back and his mouth fell open wider meant anything.  He pressed back again, bracing himself to use his weight to impale himself further, and Carlos watched with burning intent as the younger man took his pleasure.

“Carlo- _os_!” 

His name was a beautiful thing then, sweet and high when it came across Jake’s lips.  His slim back arched tight and his mouth fell open on a wobbling note while his nails cut into the bare skin on Carlos’ chest.  Head falling to the side, the boy stared down at him with a bright eyed, heavy-lidded stare, and the pink of his tongue swept slowly over the curve of his bottom lip.

“You need to st- _ah_!” The curl of his finger caused Jake’s eyes to shoot open wide, that green gaze staring down at him with a smoldering heat. That full bottom lip got caught between a row of white teeth, and the flesh pulled tight before Jake released it with a groan.  “You have stitches you stupid, suave fucker, you need to _stop_!”

Hot and tight, the flesh around his finger gripped him, the muscles fluttering along the line that he’d given Jake to ride.  Then, with a slow slide, it was gone; all of the pressure and the heat that he could envision nestled around his cock if he tried.  Tilting his head back, Carlos watched the way that Jake’s thighs trembled as he pulled himself free, and he swung himself to the mattress.  A hand slapped down on his chest, dangerously close to the stitches on his side, and Carlos winced as he caught the sharp grin on Jake’s lips.

“Good drugs mean sleep, you fuck, not tap out a beat on your soulmate’s prostate. Ex-nay on the orgasms-ay.”

His slender fingers crossed in the air, and Carlos’ eyes were drawn to the dark marks that wrapped around the skin there, the way that they stood out against the soft gold of his flesh.

“I couldn’t help myself, _amante_.”

“Yeah, well you ain’t gana have anything to _help_ yourself to unless you stop. Sleep, now.”

-

Sleep had come easily, despite the way that Carlos hadn’t expected it to come at all.  He had been too tightly wound from the rush of fleeing and the realization that the blond man was _his_ ; from the arousal and the content. The adrenalin crash had hit him though, and Jake couldn’t have been gone from him for five minutes before sleep had taken him.

Carlos had slept hard, and longer than he had expected, because his mouth had that thick, gummy feeling that only came with a long, uninterrupted sleep.  The drugs he had been given were no doubt responsible, but he found that he didn’t mind.  Not when his muscles didn’t protest quite so much when he sat up, not when the ache that he had anticipated from the stitches in his side was just that. An ache, rather than the sharp burn that he’d grown used to from his wounds, and it was a surprisingly pleasant thing, all circumstances considered.

Stretching carefully, he realised that his hair was free around his shoulders, the tie that he usually kept it back with gone, and that the strands were tangled amongst themselves.  Catching his fingers in it, Carlos turned, carefully moving himself so the sheets were gone from his body, and his feet slid to the floor.  Eyebrows drawn down and a confused frown pulling at his lips, Carlos stared at the rainbow colored, unicorn patterned socks that clung to his ankles; too small and stretched thin at the toes.

Laughing quietly, and more amused than he probably should have been, Carlos tipped his head back up, taking his first real look at the room.  The bed he had lain in was wide, the sheets just as brightly colored as he had thought they were, the night before, and the length of it was pressed tight against the only window in the room.  Dark curtains hung down, and the light that peeked around the edges was colored, sending splashes of sunlight across the room.  The closet was half open, with fabrics of all kinds and colors spilling out onto the floor, and the two dressers were just the same. Two bookshelves outlined the shape of the desk, another one stretched out over the top of all of it, and the bound books were mixed with circuit boards and all kinds of electronics that he didn’t understand or recognize.

Where it should have been though, his hat was gone, and it was with narrowed eyes that Carlos eased himself to his feet.

Fingers trailing across the soft sheets, he took a moment to gather his balance, to secure himself, and even then the steps he took were slow, swaying things.  Teeth grinding, jaw clenching, there was no one to see the way that his hands went out to try and steady himself, but that wouldn’t have stopped him anyway.  The next steps were better, more defined, and his body didn’t threaten to fold from the aftereffects of the drugs.

The rest of the room was easy to take in then and… the doorknob was a strange thing, a rectangular indentation in the door’s surface. Neither pushing nor pulling did anything, and it was only with a sharp wiggling motion that he noticed the door sliding sideways, and Carlos felt himself flush as he eased it back into its hub in the wall.  The hallway before him was painted the same deep gray as the bedroom he had just come from, and the lights spilling from the end of it were bright.

Leaning against the wall, he felt silly standing in his boxers and a pair of borrowed socks, but Carlos couldn’t help the smile that pulled at the corner of his lips.

The light filling the living room was natural (or as natural as it could ever be in the heart of Chinese territory) and bright.  Streaming through the open windows, it carried with it the cacophony of sounds that drifted up from the busy streets below. The babble of voices, the sharp sounds of the market and open stores, all mixed with the loud rumbles of engines and squeals of tires, obviously seemed like music to Jake’s ears. The boy moved about the living room with a practiced ease, skipping over wires and managing to avoid every piece of electrical equipment like it didn’t actually exist.

Perched on the top of his head was the dusty, worn leather hat, tipped down over his bright eyes and caught on the rim of his glasses.

The boy was draped in a faded pink shirt that threatened to hang off one shoulder, and his jeans were tight, pale denim that looked like it was painted on his slim legs.  He wore only one sock, a bright yellow and green striped thing, and his other foot was bare, toes curling on the floor where he stood. There was a grin on his face, and his lips moved in sync with the sharp, lilting words that poured from speakers on the walls, sung in a language that Carlos didn’t understand. Regardless, the way that the Mandarin consonants slipped off Jake’s clever tongue were impossible to mistake.

“Carlos! Holy jizznits, you’re awake!”

The excitement that lit up the boy’s face made it easier to ignore his strange way of speaking, and Carlos felt a smile brush across his own lips in response.  Under the brim of his hat, Jake’s eyes were bright, shining things, and the light reflected off of his glasses with a gleam where they had slipped down his upturned nose.  The boy made a pretty picture, with his wide stretched lips and his flushed skin, and Carlos’ hands itched to touch, his mouth to taste.

Jake knew that, if the sharp twist his lips made meant anything, and a cheeky look settled upon his features before his hands went up.  Fingers curling, covered marks on his arms burning, Carlos watched as Jake shook his own, long fingers at him, the motions sharp and mocking.

“No, no! None of that, Mister. I’ve got to leave for work in about, oh - ten minutes, and you…”

Jake swayed toward him; the boy’s hips rolled and his legs slid one before the other as he crossed the floor, and his tanned fingers tapped at Carlos’ chest.

“ _You_ are going to get your bandages changed, and then you’re going to go back to bed.”

Carlos tilted his head, looking down at the boy with a faint smile still spread across his own lips. Jake didn’t seem to notice, though, already plucking at the bandage that clung to the dark skin on his side, and Carlos let him, fingers steady when he reached out.

“I don’t think you’ve got an infection, because hello, I sanitized the fuck out of these things. That’s probably going to make them hurt like a bitch when you start feeling them, but hey, they’re clean!  And you’re up now, which is like, hella awesome and all, but you won’t be for long, and I want you to change these again when you wake.  Because regardless of how much you clean bullet wounds, they seep puss like it ain’t nobody’s business, trust me.  Really though, that’s just their thing, not much you can d-“

It had been real then, how soft and supple Jake’s lips had felt against his own.

Gently, both hands framed the boy’s face, thumbs grazing the sharp crests of his cheekbones and his fingertips supporting the sharp curve of his jaw. His skin was soft, and his breath was sharp with mint when they broke apart, Jake’s breath leaving him in a quiet gasp.  Quixotically, Carlos thought he had never known anything more perfect.

“Don’t touch the hat.”

”Oh?”

-

The boy had been late leaving the apartment, ten minutes turning into fifteen which had dragged into twenty; twenty five turning into thirty.  His lips had been stained a bruised red, and his skin almost as flushed, but Jake had finally managed to flee.  In his haste, he hadn’t noticed how the pain medication hadn’t been swallowed, and Carlos remained lucid.

Slipping out of the apartment not long after, he wasn’t Carlos though, because the man that he wished he could always be had no place doing the things that he planned to do.

It was Cougar, then, who seemed to glide down the flights of stairs to the crowded street below; Cougar who tipped his hat down low, over dark eyes.  The clothes he wore were not his own, but they fit well enough, even if the jeans were a little tighter than he would usually wear. The shoes were his, though, sturdy reliable boots that splashed in the deep puddles from the previous night’s rains as he walked, with his body carefully attuned and his motions precise.

Even in the morning rush, Jake was easy to follow.

The apartment was situated six floors up, flanked by units that were probably the same size, and tagged with a few numbers and some symbols that he couldn’t read.  The buildings all around were sun-gleaming things, shimmering from it whether they were stores or restaurants, boutiques or bars.  It was a headache to see, with each building more than ten stories tall, and each floor housing something different, each with its own flashing signs and colorful decorations. The walkways continued even in this section, some seven floors up and then others further still, and they were littered with people who seemed far too at ease with their precarious situation.

The teen’s blond hair and bright shirt made him stand out like a flame, even in the mass of people, but he moved amongst them with a practiced, natural ease; as if he were one of them.  Cougar witnessed the way that Jake would tip his head in a nod to one person, just to offer a smile, and then throw a few catcalling words to another, without pausing for a breath or missing a step. He was comfortable around these people, who he bore no physical resemblance to, and it was startling to realize that he was really part of them; it wasn’t simply an act.  

It gave him mental pause, the realization of it, but Cougar didn’t hesitate, stalking after his soul mate with a single minded intent. The boy seemed oblivious to his pursuit, chattering all the way as he went.  Soon, the buildings and the catwalks looked familiar, as much as they could, and the turns were ones that he remembered taking with an exhausted kind of muscle memory.  This thin alley was one he remembered dimly, and the door that Jake ducked into now was the same one that he himself had been pulled through, only hours before.

He was alone among the crowd of strangers then, and Cougar’s lips curled while he scoffed at himself.  He had been in the company of strangers since he had been plucked into the very building he now stared at; the ease, the attraction he felt with Jacob did nothing to change the fact that he knew nothing about the younger man. The bond between them made things easier, made them seem like they could be effortless together, but they didn’t know the first thing about each other.

There was nothing to be gained from standing outside of the building, to wait for Jake to get off work, and it was pointless to waste a day exposed within the ranks of faces where he could never hope to blend. The contact with the crowds made him uncomfortable, and Cougar felt his skin start to crawl in reaction to their proximity.  In response, he turned his hat down farther over his face, kept his body loose, as he wove his way back through them and recounted his steps.

The apartment was easy enough to find, retracing his steps proving to be easier than he had thought it would be.  Cougar kept his head down and his ears open the entire way, hearing everything but understanding nothing in the arching tones that swirled around him, the sharp words that filled his ears.  His body stayed tight all the way back up the steps to the apartment, and it wasn’t until the door closed behind him that he felt himself relax.

Still, there was nothing more to be done, now, nothing that the marksman within him would find to be truly relevant.  So he made do, toeing off his boots where they had previously been found, beside the door, and giving his shoulders a faint roll.  The interior of the apartment was just as he had left it, with colorful light streaming in from the window and more electronics than he had hope of recognizing scattered about.  Shoes were tumbled in the hallway, a jacket was slipping off of the couch, and the overstuffed chair that sat in the corner had a dark blue blanket thrown over it, though the cloth did nothing to cover the horrible, colorful print on the chair.  A stack of laptops took up the coffee table, and on the floor beside it was a pile of metal bricks with little ports on the sides, another thing that he didn’t understand.

Trailing his fingers over the back of the couch as he went, Cougar felt himself shudder and let himself slip, because there was no objective, there was no mission.  His target had been killed and, regardless of the things Jake had said, it would do him good to lie low for a few days safe from the Russians. There was no urgent need to check back in with the English, and no one would come searching for him for another few weeks.

The wound within his side ached, sharp and throbbing, but the marks along his arm only felt tight – from the bindings, no doubt.  Carlos peeled and shimmied out of his borrowed shirt and jeans, both of which he dropped to the floor without much thought. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he tipped his hat back with his wrist, and stared at the white wrappings there for a moment before picking at a curled edge.

They came away slowly, revealing pressure-imprinted skin as they went, and he paused every time he caught a glimpse of black.  The surrounding skin was red, puffy with rapidly healing irritation, but it took his breath away to watch the segments of soul painted skin appear.  Once the last loop was gone he let the bandage drop, to coil in his lap, and Carlos skimmed careful fingers over the marks that mirrored Jake’s, band for band.

He didn’t know for how long he stared at them, but it was long enough for the angle of the light to shift, for him to be caught off guard by the crush of pain that appeared along his left eye, for him to feel the sudden burning pressure in his right shoulder. The gasp that escaped him was a startled thing, torn from within his lungs before he could control it and it was with wide eyes that Carlos stared at the closed doorway of the bedroom.

Even after the throb had faded to a dull ache, he continued to stare, and the sounds hours later of the apartment door opening and closing did nothing to ease the tension that had taken home in his muscles.

“Lucy, I’m home!”

Jake’s voice was a dancing tone, but it caught on the edges of his letters as though they sat uncomfortably on his tongue. Planetary standard wasn’t his first language then, no doubt an afterthought, with how easy Mandarin and Cantonese sounded where they twisted on his tongue. His voice carried, all the way into the bedroom, and Carlos watched the door with sharp eyes and muscles that threatened to burst from their tension.

It was like a punch to the gut, seeing the abused skin on the young man’s face.  The golden flesh transformed around the cavity of his eye, turned a dark and angry violet from the well of blood that had nowhere to go.  It had seeped into the white of his eye, the clear color laced now with sharp, red spindly veins that leeched in toward the center, and the green of his eye looked grayer with its presence.

Jake grinned at him though, as if his skin wasn’t painted in new colors, crimsons and violets, sickly yellows and greens that tried to ruin the soft tan on his flesh. There was no way of seeing what had happened to his shoulder, but he knew the injury was there, had felt the burn of it within his own flesh.  The pressure had been as real as if it were on his own skin, and the bone had shifted in place, a bruise feeling like it threatened to bloom.  Though Carlos had experienced no trauma himself, he knew that the damage that had been done.  Carlos felt his gut and his fists clench, while an angry, helpless feeling overcame him.  His fury was obvious, through the link between them, because Jake’s eyes widened, and the grin that adorned his face fell into something quite different.

Carefully, the boy walked forward to stand between the spread of his legs, causing Carlos to tip back, to look up at him.  Up close, it was worse.  The sharp contrast between the healthy gold that he knew, and the violet that he saw now, made him feel ill.  Reaching out, one of Jake’s hands traced it’s fingers across his hair, the side of his face, the line of his hat, and Carlos leaned into it with ease.

“I’m fine, just an accident at work. Nothin’ to worry about.”

Lips pressed thin, he nodded, gazing at the other man for a moment before dipping his head against his counterpart’s chest.  Arms banding around the teen’s thin waist, Carlos kept his hold loose, just in case, but his head nuzzled there for the comfort of it alone.

It was impossible to ignore the blood that was crusted under Jacob’s nails though, or the way his skin smelled like gun powder and arsenic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not even going to apologize for the delay, this is a hobby, not my education or profession. That aside, I hope you enjoy it, and please tell me what you think regardless!  
> (not fixing the stupid missing spaces that AO3 does right now, I have property viewings in the morning)

He hadn’t been given the opportunity to talk further, after the fake words of reassurance that Jake had tried to give to him.  The boy’s skin still smelled sharp, bitter with arsenic and gunpowder, things that didn’t belong on young flesh.  Jake had refused to take no for an answer, even in his abused state, and he had used his wiry strength to press Carlos back into the mattress.  His own fingers had stretched out, dark digits reaching for the slighter man, and it seemed only natural that his grasp had been easily evaded, Jake’s movements quick, and his body seemingly accustomed to the contorting movements.  Those fingers had waggled at him once more, the dark bands that matched his own like shadowed brands in the dim lighting, and Carlos had been denied.

“I’m going to go shower, and I expect you t’be asleep when I get out.” The boy’s fingers had smoothed through his hair, gentle against the abrasions on his skin, and Carlos had watched him with dark eyes.  Jake had just grinned at him though, soft and sure, like he knew something that Carlos didn’t.

“You were supposed to be sleeping, Carlos, not following me around my own town.”

Jake had tapped him on the forehead, then, shaking his head like he was disappointed, before he had disappeared, slinking out of the room with his hands in his pockets.  Carlos had stayed put, his body tense even when he heard the water kick on, his muscles tight.  Sleep had refused to take him, not once he had seen the violent colors that the boy’s skin had been painted with.  It had only been after Jake had returned, dripping wet and smelling clean, without the tang of spices from the restaurant or the taint of gunpowder on his skin, that he had started to feel the exhaustion; only succumbing to sleep when the younger man had taken it upon himself to curl up against Carlos’ side.

That had been the night before, though, when the darkness in the room had been battled by the bright, colored lights that slanted through the blinds on the window.  Now, even though the sun had come up, Jake remained a warm weight against him.  Pressed against his side, the younger man was a solid stretch of flesh, spread thin over his bones, and Carlos ran his fingertips gently across the bare line of Jake’s spine.

The younger man didn’t stir at his touch, though, and there was no flinch in his muscles nor did his breathing pattern change: either he slumbered that hard, or Jake was just that good at faking it.  His face was pressed against Carlos’ bare shoulder, arm crushed at an angle and one leg thrown over the jut of Carlos’ hips.  He was haphazardly pinned by the sleeping teen, one arm caught under the slender arch of Jake’s rib cage and the appendage had lost all sensation, trading it in for pins that pricked along his flesh.  Heated breaths puffed out slowly against his throat, and the gape of Jake’s open mouth allowed a hot trickle of drool to cast over the skin of Carlos’ collarbone, where it slowly cooled.

Still, his fingers trailed slowly across the expanse of Jake’s skin, counting the knobs of his spine and feeling the shallow dimples just above the curve of his ass.  Jake was warm in his arm, real and alive in a way that felt very strange to him, and yet Carlos felt himself at ease.  The skin he touched was warm, and it smelled sharply of the ripe, citric scent that the boy had seemingly steeped himself in during his shower.

He didn’t remember a time that he had ever simply basked in the presence of another living person; in his line of work there was no time to set aside, to really _meet_ people, so friendly relationships weren’t something that he knew.  There hadn’t been a time when his sex life wasn’t either paid for or haphazardly rushed, with a man or woman whose name he wouldn’t remember by the end of the encounter.  There had been no time to take soft kisses, from his partners’ mouths, and no reason to try and learn the places on their bodies that drew out the slowest sighs or the softest moans.  The probability of ever seeing them again had been next to none, and Carlos had never bothered to think about those sorts of things.

Lying in the pale, colorful morning light though, warm and comfortable as he was in Jake’s bed, he realized that everything had changed.  He wanted to learn what it was like to wake the younger man up by trailing kisses along the smooth skin of his jaw.  There was a desire to educate himself in the things that pleased the blonde man; to know what touches would bring him the most pleasure, what sights would make him the most content.  It went beyond simple sexual desire though, because he also ached to know what his mate’s favorite food was, how he liked to spend his afternoons, and what Jake did to treat himself when he thought no one else was looking; and it was so strange a want that Carlos found himself staggered.

Tightening his arm where it was looped loosely around Jake’s body, the younger man made a quiet sound against the skin of his throat, but otherwise stayed lost in his slumber.  Carlos was free to experience what it felt like to have another person sleeping in his arms, to know the way that someone else’s breathing leveled out in the depths of a sweet dream.  Turning his head, Carlos nuzzled his nose along the curve of Jake’s temple, and brushed his lips carefully across the line of his hair.

It was different, to be content to simply hold another person, and to even know what it really felt like to hold someone close.  He couldn’t remember a time that he himself had ever been held, not since his father perhaps, when he was small, and those memories were distant things from a life long past.  Jake was real though, with his knee pressed uncomfortably into Carlos’ ribs and the dark, claiming bands on his arm.  There was a simple pleasure to be had, knowing that the person he held would simply let him do just that, and Carlos reveled in that feeling as he let himself fall back into sleep.

-

Jake had left the bed before him, almost dragging him along,despite the way that Carlos had snapped to attention at the feeling of the mattress shifting.  Up on his feet before his brain could even fully register it, Jake had pushed at him until he had been steady, and then he’d been ushered into the bathroom that he’d previously only seen for just long enough to relieve himself.  A pair of sweatpants had been pushed to his chest, and the boy had waved a hand at the shower with a tired grunt before slamming the door.

The water had been hot, blessedly so, and he’d taken care with it along the lines of his stitches, pressing the waterproof wrap tighter against them until the white fabric strained.  Standing under the spray, he’d taken a deep breath of the humid air, relaxing with his eyes shut and his head heavy from the weight of the combined shampoo and conditioner.  His hair had been a tangled mess by the end of it, even though his skin was clean and hot to the touch, and Carlos had scrubbed the towel he had found across his flesh, to scatter any water, before wringing his hair out harshly.

Five minutes to comb and remove all of the knots, and the thick fall of black had hinted at a light curl around his shoulders by the end of it; shiny and healthy looking in the fogged bathroom mirror. The image of himself had given him pause, and he had tipped his head first to the left, then the right, to inspect his face.  The hair along his cheeks and jaw had grown, casting a dark shadow across the skin there that made his features look far sharper than he thought they usually were. Two days of solid, comfortable sleep had done him good though, for the discoloration that he had grown so used to seeing under his eyes was gone, and Carlos was left staring at a face that he almost didn’t recognize.

He’d tugged on the sweatpants, too short in the legs as they were, so that they rode low on his hips to compensate.  It had taken a few seconds to decide but, in the end, he had folded his underwear with the rest of his dirty clothes, into a rough pile that he set on the floor along the wall in the bedroom.   A careful hand touched his rifle case, knowing it was there, locked within the innocent swelling shape of an acoustic guitar, before his bare feet carried him to the living room.

The scent of food was rich there, something that he didn’t recognize, and an energetic Mandarin tune filled the air in the kitchen.  The open window let in a cool breeze, sending goose bumps along the exposed skin of his torso and arms, and Carlos leaned against the doorframe with a soft grin.

Jake’s back was to him, and the familiar slope of his own hat was riding on the boy’s head, bobbing with the beat of the music where it came from the little radio that balanced on the window sill; at his elbow was a plate of pale, doughy buns with thin wisps of steam rising from them, and his arms moved with a quick precision, slicing something that Carlos couldn’t see.  The air was sharp though, from the heady scent that came from the buns and something that was nearly sour.

“ _Amanté_?”

The boy didn’t startle, though the chopping sounds stopped, and he looked over his shoulder with a bright grin.

“ _Āi shuài_!  Hey, handsome! Hope you’re hungry, because I’m kind of starving, and I made some yummy stuff?”

Nodding, Carlos sat at the little round table that was shoved against the wall under the window, when Jake pointed with the knife he used.  A stout white teapot sat beneath the radio, two handleless cups beside it, and a thin cloud of steam slowly crawled from the spout.  He kept his hands to himself though, content to watch the quick, practiced motions that Jake made as he maneuvered his knife on the counter.  A turn and a few steps later, and Carlos stared at the two plates with widened eyes and a thin pressed mouth.

He’d been right, about the buns, though they were things that he didn’t recognize even if they smelled wonderful.  The sour smell came from the next plate, a row of slices of dark, blackened pieces of food that he couldn’t even think to name.  The sight of them made his nostrils flare in disgust, and he looked up with something close to horror as Jake scooped a piece up without hesitation and took a large bite.

“What is that?”

While he chewed, Jake nudged one of the buns at him, and Carlos took it with greedy fingers, feeling the hot warmth of it and the peculiar, squishy texture against his skin.  Still, he raised it to his mouth, sniffing it to check before sinking his teeth into it. The flavor was sharp, a soft hint from the dough that was nearly overpowered by whatever spiced, juicy meat had been packed inside. It was slick with oil and grease on his tongue, and he took the second bite before he had even really finished chewing, eyes bright on the younger man across from him.

“ _Pí dàn_ , it’s called, a ‘one hundred year egg’, but it’s no- hey!  Don’t look at me like that!  I’m not feeding you moldy food - I’ll warn you before I do that.  Eggs don’t keep like fish does, if you let them go bad, the consistency and flavor are all wrong.  It’s really just a preserved egg; I bottled them about a month ago because we had some at work for a festival and I wanted some for myself.”

Brows rising in silent question, Carlos took another bite of his prize, savoring the flavor of it.  Good food was hard to come by, with how often he was on the run, and it had been a while since he’d tasted anything that he actually wanted to eat.  It was only when he went to take another bite that he noticed his hand was empty, and he looked down at his fingers with a feeling of confusion.

Jake laughed at him, flicking another roll at him with a wink.

“They’re totally safe, I promise.  It’s like cheese, but it used to be an egg, so it’s got different proteins in it, is all.”

Nodding slowly, Carlos took a slower bite of his food, bent on savoring the second roll, even if there were eight more on the plate between them.  Jake didn’t seem to mind, though, appearing content to chew on his preserved, blackened egg slices, as if the food didn’t look like it was toxic.

“Those are _mán tóu_ , steamed buns.  Made those because I figured I’d lead you in easy, to Chinese food, since most people who aren’t used to it are a little leery about eating our stuff.”

Jake’s free hand waved around, and the dark bands on his skin were sleek in the bright sunlight.  His tone was fondly exasperated, though, as if he couldn’t understand what problem people would have with eating rotten food.

“The _Gaelic’s_ eat these things called _crubeens,_ and they won’t tell you what’s in it, but people eat that _just_ fine.  You English-bred are complete sissies about your food! They brain wash you ‘til you stick with your colorless tea and stale biscuits, but at least I’ll warn you before I feed you any of the sea slugs or chicken testicles.  Don’t even get me started on the _Congos_ , because you really don’t want to know half of the things that they eat on a daily basis.  If you _do_ , I’ve got a guy, he’ll give you a couple of dishes that’ll make you second guess everything you ever eat again.”

Blinking, Carlos slowly set the half-eaten bun down on the table top, staring at his soulmate with wide eyes and an uneasy stomach.  Jake just laughed though, a loud, full bellied sound, and he clamped a hand over his mouth only after the partially chewed _pí dàn_ started to fall out.  Nose wrinkling, Carlos watched the other man with amusement as well as distaste, enjoying the way that Jake’s happiness colored his face.

“This is what you eat every day?”

Shrugging, Jake waited until he had swallowed to start speaking again, but his words were just as quick as the previous ones had been.  One of the steaming, dark little cups of tea that had been on the table got swept up, and he took a quick sip of the scalding liquid, though his golden features didn’t flinch at the heat.

“The _mán tóu_ are a good breakfast on the go, because I can literally put anything in them the night before and just eat them cold and, if I don’t get them here, I can grab _xián ya dàn_ , a really tasty salted duck egg, or _ji_ _u cài hé_ , which are just fried leek dumplings, from one of the vendors on the way to work. I’ll make some sort of noodle or vegetable soup for dinner usually, lunch varies on whatever we throw together for ourselves on break at work, and I can go through roughly half a pound of tea in a week.”

“Is that safe?”

Grinning broadly, Jake leaned back, patting a hand on his abdomen with a bit of glee.

“Well, I’ve never had a bladder infection or a kidney stone, so I think I’m doing pretty damn good. Medicinal teas get sold on the street, and you can smell them from a mile away, so if you ever do need anything, whatever’s ailing you doesn’t last long.  You either puke or piss it out by the end of the day.  Eat your _mán tóu_ ; it’s not diseased.”

Lips quirking, Carlos took the tea cup up instead, wrapping his fingers around the hot little porcelain piece. Gleaming white, small brush strokes had painted neat blue flowers and vines along the smooth edge of it, and he brushed his thumb across it to feel the slightly raised texture. A slow sniff of the tea inside, and it smelled balmy, sweet and tangy against his nose. The scent was a lie though, for the scalding sip he took was just as bitter against his tongue as it was hot, and Carlos set the cup back down carefully.

“Smartass.”

“Yeah, like you’re not a cheeky bastard yourself; don’t think you can fool me with your silence, those eyebrows say it all.  So, care to explain why there’s a loaded gun stored in my room?  Nice case by the way; very upcycled but not too classy, which is good, because it keeps you discreet. Stereotypical as hell though, Carlos… really, a _guitar_ case? What do you think you’re going to do if someone wants to see what’s in it, start singing to them? That might work for the English, but we Chinese are picky as fuck.”

Leaning back a bit in his seat, Carlos stared at the other man and watched the slight frown that pulled at Jake’s lips and the careful way that he took another careful bite of his preserved egg.  The unease he felt now was heavy, urgent and hot in his stomach; he hadn’t said a single word about who he worked for.  Jake felt the sudden tension too, an echo of it at least, if the way that his eyes widened and his nose scrunched meant anything.

“What, did you think I didn’t notice?  I stripped you to your boxers; it was stupid easy to find the permit papers on you.”

“Those papers don’t specify who I work for, Jacob.”

His free hand sliced through the air, those dark stained digits shaking as if to disperse the sudden weight of the conversation.  Jake paid it no mind though, his green eyes bright with something dangerous, and Carlos’ fingers slowly tightened into fists.  His eyes flickered to the window, only leaving his soulmate’s for a moment to check but, no, he couldn’t fit through that space, and the door was behind Jake.

“They do if you know what to look for, Carlos.”

His grin was sharp, just as dark and glittering as the savage look in his eyes.  It was wrong, to feel aroused by that display of power, but he did, and Carlos swallowed heavily in response to it. The light air that had surrounded them was gone, yet the sounds of the radio, the people outside, all of that remained the same.  It was only in the suddenly claustrophobic space of the kitchen around them that the entire world had shifted once more, and Carlos wondered just how much the blonde boy was going to ruin him, by the end of all of this.

“What do you want?”

His own voice was low, those few words spoken slowly as he thought them over in his head. The cards were in Jake’s hands, and the boy sat between him and the only available exit, something that Carlos knew he was aware of, judging by the tilt of his head and the condescending look on his beautiful features.  There was nothing he could do, not without endangering himself, and Carlos found that he felt no desire to harm the boy, either.

All he wanted was something good though, something right, and he had thought that he had found it.  Jake’s grins had been so bright, his laughter so easy, and his body had felt warm and perfect pressed up against Carlos’ side in sleep.  The mirrored marks on their arms and hands  showed just how preordained they were, to be together, but he could only do so much; part of the responsibility for trying to make them work fell on Jake as well, and there was no way of telling what the boy would do.

It was so easy to forget that they were perfect strangers, soulmates or not.

The skin around Jake’s eyes softened, and the pale flat line of his lips got back some of its pink color, as his face relaxed.  Slowly, as if he were giving Carlos time to pull away, he reached across the little table and linked their hands together.  Jake’s fingers were long, slender, marked with little white scars all along the knuckles; the blackened bands along their fingers matched up perfectly, and his heart ached at the sight of them.

“I want you to trust me enough to talk to me.”

Swallowing, he nodded after a moment, dark eyes caught on the boy’s face.  Jake looked easy though, pleasant and earnest, and his voice was soft. The tones were nearly lost under the rush of sound that spilled in from the open window, yet the boy seemed to not even hear it at all. Instead, he gave Carlos a hesitant smile, the curve of his lips gentle and his green eyes glistening behind dark lashes.

“I used to be a boy in San José, Peru, in _Latin_ territory before I came north.  I’m good with my rifle, and the English paid well so, for now, I work for them.  I do not know what else you want me to say.”

Jake’s cheeks crinkled with a wry sort of grin, and his shoulders lifted in a partial shrug.  He seemed satisfied with the scraps of information offered, though, and his full lips brushed a kiss over Carlos’ knuckles in response.

“See, was that so hard?  You’re more interesting than me; I’m not anything cool like that.  I just work in the kitchen at a restaurant and recycle computer software and hardware.”

Turning their hands over, Carlos stared at the way that the black bands aligned on their skin. Mesmerized by the boy’s flesh, he traced the tips of his fingers across the circlet at his wrist, caught with the way that Jake trembled at his touch. A smile brushed his own lips, pleased with himself and at ease once more, with the tightness in his chest gone.

“Why are you here, Carlos?”

A glance up showed that Jake’s eyebrows had disappeared under the line of his borrowed hat, and his glasses glinted in the morning light.  There was a flush to his skin though, healthy color that filled him with life.  Strangely, Carlos found that he didn’t much mind the way his hat looked on the boy’s head, or how his own hair felt free, unconfined and falling around his shoulders.

“This _kitchen_ , or this territory?”

He tapped twice with his thumb at the curve of the boy’s wrist, and Jake grinned.

“I grew up in this Territory.   _Mǔqīn_ , Mama, found my sister and I when we were little, wandering the edge.  I was just a toddler and Jane was only six, dragging me around the streets to try and keep us safe.  She took us in, taught us how to speak, and we’ve lived here ever since.  I work for her now, and Jane runs a business at a boutique a few streets away; she lives above it too. This _territory_ is our home and it’s the only one we’ve ever known, since we were orphaned. I’ve always been _Chinese_ , as far as I’m concerned.”

Words were apparently hard for Jake to find, obvious in the way that the sadness he felt left a bitter twist to his mouth and, after a moment, he simply stopped trying.  Instead, Carlos sighed, tracing his fingers over the band at Jake’s wrist. Tugging at the boy so he was raised half out of his chair, he pressed slow kisses to the skin of his palm, the inside of his wrist, and made a silent vow to try and put the breathless smile that Jake gave him, then, upon his face as often as he could.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals week is nearly upon us, and I'm going to destroy someone, I swear it. This college campus will be painted red by the time I'm done with it, and I'll feel no remorse. Being a junior is hard, senior year is going to be just as hard. But! I love you all, so I've been slowly piddling away at another chapter for you lovies, and here it is!  
> Tell me what you think?  
> Note: Names such as English, Netherlands and Russian are italicized bc theyre Mafia organizations, titles that have emphasis on them bc theyre titles

The same soft, sepia mood that had touched them that morning had carried itself into the rest of the day, making everything seem brighter than it should have been.  Every sound was sharper, every color more vivid, and the streets of Chinese territory had never seemed quite so exotic and lively as they did then, to Carlos, with Jake’s hand grasped within his own.  Laughter was heavy on his tongue, quiet, muffled sounds that didn’t quite know what to do with themselves, but Jake made up for the both of them with his wide smile and his quick fingers… no booth had been safe from them, no food unsampled and every object toyed with after Jake had pulled him out from the safety of the apartment and into the spring sun.

The air was cool, from the rains that he could still scent in the air from the previous night, to the way that the horizon seemed to be filled with heavy, wet bellied clouds that threatened to spill their atmosphere tears. None of the territory’s occupants had seemed to care though, all of them too wrapped up in their smiles, their morning activities and their conversations to take notice of the way that the weather promised to turn; just as none of them had paid any mind to the two men who whose foreign features didn’t fit amongst their ranks.

As if to prove a previous point, Jake had plucked up a miniature china cup from an oriental, ornate, hole-in-the-wall shop and offered it to Carlos. The walls had been lined with various bags and vials of crushed and dried leaves, redwood shelves heavy under the burden of it all, and the tea in the cup had smelled deceptively sweet. The scent of the tea had been a lie though, and Carlos swore that his tongue had shriveled down his throat to disappear into the acid pit of his stomach, never to be heard from again.

It was hardly a surprise that the boy had looked so cheeky, so smug, when he informed Carlos that he had just swallowed a dose of medicinal tea.

He had found he didn’t mind the boy’s laughter at his expense, though, just as he didn’t resent the way that he would break off, as if the words he meant to say simply got lost upon his tongue. Jake’s Standard would first become thickly peppered with words that didn’t belong, before it tailed off altogether and then Mandarin was the only thing that slipped from his tongue. The foreign words were biting things, with high vowels and staccato consonants, and it was all he could do to just hold the younger man’s hand and listen as he lost himself in his adopted mother-tongue.

-

Lunch had hardly qualified as that: less of a traditional luncheon of any type and more of an… experience. His fingers had become tacky and slick with oils that he didn’t recognize, vegetables that he couldn’t name and meats that were of questionable origin, at best.  Jake had simply picked things out from the stands, dripping with sauces or dry with spices, and Carlos had barely been given glimpses of them before the morsels had been pressed between his lips.

There had been no desire for dinner, by the time they had stumbled back to Jake’s apartment, because the boy hadn’t given him the chance to grow hungry in the slightest.  In fact, his body had felt so full that it pressed the line between comfort and too much, and Carlos found himself bracing a hand discreetly on his lower back from time to time.  Jake had grinned though, a big bellied bottle of something unrecognizable clasped by the neck, between his fingers, and he had pulled Carlos through the door with a wicked laugh.

The bed had been soft beneath him when Jake pushed him back onto it, and the cool mouth of the bottle gave way to the sharp, fizzing tang of fruit and something syrupy sweet that he didn’t recognize.  Jake’s lips had been slick with it, just as sticky as his own tongue, and the bottle had found its way to the floor with a quiet clank while their lips slid together.  Jake’s hands found his hair while his own had traced the boy’s skin; one skimming the flesh of his ribs while the other pulled his slender back into an arch.

Jake had sighed, a keening sound that filled the quiet of the air, and their lips had caught together once more in a tacky slide. They had carried on like that, with their fingers grappling at each other’s flesh and their mouths learning the taste of the other’s skin. Every press of his lips that earned a sigh had been categorized, every moan filed away, but nothing more had become of it; he had been denied the pleasure of Jake’s body previously, so it only seemed fair to make the boy work for the pleasure that he could give in return.

The hard line of flesh that tried to grind up against his thigh, and the put upon whine that fell from Jake’s lips, had been enough to tell him what he needed to know about just how far Jake was willing to go, and Carlos had pulled away.  Twisting, he had turned them so that he could sprawl on his back, Jake stretched out over top of him, and his hand pressed down sharply on the boy’s hips when he tried to resume their activities.

“Go to sleep, _amante_.”

Jake had grumbled, thoroughly unimpressed if the way that his fist hit Carlos’ side meant anything, but the older man just grinned into the darkness.

 -

The sharp ringing in his ear had woken him, jarring him into confused consciousness in the dim darkness of the room.  Splashes of orange and red light fell from between the gaps in the curtains, bathing Jake’s exposed skin in alien colors. It took him longer than it should have, to understand just what had disturbed him, but then Carlos tensed with a sigh, easing out from under Jake and off the bed.

Another impatient sound rang from the soft flesh behind his ear, just above the hinge of his jaw, and he padded out of the room on bare feet.

The living room had been just as dim as the bedroom, though the lights that streamed in were painting different colors; flashing things that seemed bent on making their presence known.  Tapping a finger to the skin behind his ear, he let out a sigh of relief when the alerts stopped.  They were replaced by static though, a simmering crackle of sound that crawled through the thin bones and membranes of his ear.

“Alvarez. You missed a check-in.”

The voice in his ear was crisp and echoed in his head with the quiet rattle that came from the audio implant. He’d never managed to get used to it, despite the fact that he’d had one since he’d first been swept up for a contract.  Hands loose at his sides, for the moment, Carlos paced the length of the living room to the window and felt himself slipping away.

“We received word that the target has been eliminated, but you drew more attention to yourself than you should have. You’re a trained professional, Alvarez, you should perform better than this.”

Lips pressed together, Cougar stared out into the colorful nightlife that the Chinese Territory pulsed with.  It was only his third night within the maze of buildings and bright lights, and he had yet to get used to the way that the people never seemed to sleep. The world was wet still, from the thunderclouds that hung heavy in the sky, and the bolts of lightning were lost behind the neon lights.

“You are required to report in at 0600 for your next assignment; unpunctual behavior will result in employment termina-“

“Terminate me, then.” 

His voice was thick from sleep and from left over laughter that had caused it to crack. Eyes dark as he stared out, watching the rest of the world, he felt the shift in the air as something changed, the noticeable sounds of feet that weren’t his own on the floor.

Out of the corner of his eye Cougar could see the vague outline of Jake, where he leaned in the doorway, and his heart leapt to his throat.

“Alvarez?”

“The information you gave me was faulty and you almost cost me my life but, also, the lives of innocent people. Terminate me, because I’m done working for you, _hijo de putas_.” 

Silence had settled through the line, then, and he felt some relief in the fact that Jake could only hear half of the conversation.

“If you’re terminated, you won’t be paid for your last assignment.”

Lips curling, Spanish rumbled thick on his tongue with a dark chuckle, and he cursed in his mother tongue before continuing.

 “You’ll pay me, bastardo, or I’ll take the intel you gave me to the _Russians_.”

Another tap to the skin behind his ear, and the connection was lost, the call gone as if it had never happened at all. His blood was buzzing though, hands clenched into tight fists, and he’d lost the ability to control his own breathing.

A faint clicking sound filled the air, causing him to tense further but when he turned, Jake was already making his way down the hall.

“Signal jammer, _qíngfū_. Won’t be able to trace or connect to you again while it’s on.  Remind me when I’m awake and I’ll get the numbers of people who can get rid of that, for you.”

Brow furrowed, Cougar followed the slighter man, watching the way that he swayed with sleep, his body loose and pliant. One slender hand scrubbed at his hair, the other scratched at the skin of his belly, and Jake stumbled over himself back to the bedroom. Reaching out, Cougar steadied him with a hand on his hip, and his tan skin was still sleep warm and soft.

“ _Amante_?”

The orange and red lights from the window looked like fire upon Jake’s skin. They clothed him in war paints that weren’t really there, colors that didn’t exist naturally on his complexion. Without his glasses, his eyes were unguarded, but there was something sharp within them.  It echoed in the set of his jaw, the show of his teeth, and the way that the darkness and the lights made the angles of his face lethal and sharp.

His fingertips reached out, sliding slow across the bare skin of Cougar’s arm, tracing down the dark rings that were nothing more than inky shadows in the darkness. Jake was warm to the touch and yet his fingertips were cold, daggers of ice, and his eyes were sharp in the echo of violent light where it washed over his face. The tone he spoke in was commanding, leaving no room for argument as he hooked his fingers in the band of Cougar’s sleep shorts and pulled him along.

“I won’t have that shit in my territory, Carlos. Now come back to bed.”

-

Jake hadn’t elaborated on the events of the previous night, the next morning, even though Carlos had watched him from behind dark lashes with inquisitive eyes. Instead, he had fluttered around the kitchen, throwing together breakfast for the two of them, and chattering out words into an honest to God phone, the device resting on the counter while a strange looking extension hooked over the curve of flesh at his ear. The words he spoke weren’t Standard, nor were they Mandarin, and from where he stood leaning against the wall in the kitchen, Carlos felt his brows rise high.

Tone deeper than it ever got when he spoke in his mother tongues, Jake’s fingers waved in the air as he spoke, one hand occupied with stirring some sort of soup for their morning meal. The words were more guttural, not the same mouthful that Russian proved to be, but something else entirely. It had been all Carlos could do to watch him patiently, which he did until Jake ended the call with a laugh, pulled the piece from his ear and tapped at the phone where it sat.

“Want to do me a favor?”

“Hmm?”

His response no doubt sounded distracted, though he felt far from it.  Instead, he watched Jake with narrowed eyes and thinned lips, taking in every motion that the boy made. Watchful and waiting, just in case he needed to turn to leave, though whatever retreat he had to make wouldn’t be as swift as he cared for.

Jake had heard his conversation the night before, the words that he had spoken at least, and that was more that Carlos was comfortable with although the boy showed no revulsion for the things he had heard, no fear or suspicion; that was reason enough for Carlos to feel his own shoulders straighten, his tension rise.

What kind of man was his soulmate, when back door espionage and murder didn’t faze him?

“The boiling water, next to me? Take it off the heat and pour it into the pot we used yesterday.  There’s a bag with the leaves for it on the table, just drop it in before you pour the water.”

Slowly, he pushed off the wall, moving to do as he had been asked.  His tension had been noticed though because, when he got close enough, Jake tipped his head back to look up at him, and his eyes crinkled behind his glasses with the force of his smile. One thin hip nudged his own, and Jake pressed a kiss, cautious and feather light, as if he didn’t know if he were allowed, to the exposed skin of his shoulder.

Turning his own head, Carlos brushed his lips over Jake’s temple, just barely exposed under the brim of his stolen hat.  Taking the copper kettle, he carried it over to the table, mindful to keep his grip on the handle and, as instructed, dropped the bag into the belly of the white tea pot.  He eased the water in, angling his head away from the steam that billowed up.

The scent of the tea was almost instantly heady, as sweet and balmy as the previous morning.  Jake’s hip pressed against his own, sending a rocking motion through his body, and Carlos turned his head to stare down at the boy.  He just grinned back though, far too awake for the early hour, and set two deep bowls of dark red broth with long noodles and vegetables down with a clank.

“Sit. We’ve got to eat early because I’ve got to get to work.”

Jake pushed him then, around the table to the other side, and he was given no choice but to do as instructed. Sinking down into his chair, Carlos stared at the soup for a moment before lifting his head enough to find Jake’s eyes. The boy seemed so unassuming, already pulling at his food with a pair of green chopsticks, a few noodles hanging out from between his lips.

Balancing the thin utensils between his own fingers, Carlos struggled, eyes narrowing on them as he tried to get them to move as they should.

“I’ll make some calls for you, when I’m on break, to get that implant taken care of.”

Lifting his head again, he used one hand to brush his hair out of his eyes only to find Jake watching him closely.  A faint smile touched the boy’s lips, Jake watching him as he chewed, and a shy smile of his own pulled at his lips. There were nerves though, making his stomach feel tight in a way that he had hoped would go away, and the meal didn’t seem as appetizing as he’d hoped it would be.

“You want to talk about it, or would you rather that we just agree that I heard a conversation that I shouldn’t have, and we’re going to make it so you don’t have to have another one of those again?”

Nodding after a moment, Carlos caught the way that Jake’s smile turned into a grin, and the boy’s head went back down to look at his food.

“You heard what I’ve done. What I do.”  

It wasn’t a question, and Jake knew that, obvious in the way that he nodded and how he looked up at Carlos through his blonde lashes.  He knew, and he held Carlos’ gaze as if it didn’t matter.  Jake didn’t back down from the stare, nor was there anything fearful or reproachful in his features.

It was strange, the way that he felt his own tension seeping away at the steady way that Jake held his gaze.

“You did a job, Carlos.  I don’t know what you expect me to say.  Am I happy to find out that my soulmate is a gunman who’s been working for the _English_? No, not really, because like, the chance that you could have been working for the _Chinese_? Yeah, no.  I assumed you’d be something else.”

Jake had shrugged then, a careless movement that caused the hat on his head to tip in a haphazard motion.  Carefully, Carlos reached out, tracing his fingers along the rim of it to correct the angle, keeping it on Jake’s head while allowing him to see his eyes. Jake turned his head in response, pressing his lips to the meat of Carlos’ palm, and held himself there.

“I’m just happy you aren’t dead.”

-

Jake had promised to be home by five, at the latest, and Carlos had been left to wander in the crowds of Chinese Territory.  He had been more daring this time around, with how he ventured into the throngs of people who seemed to already recognize his face.  Smiles were given to him, the occasional hand patted on his arm and, around lunch time, a plastic box of duck in orange sauce was passed to him by a vendor who hadn’t let him refuse it.

His day had been spent like that, introducing himself to the sights of Chinese Territory, and it ate away at the daylight in a way that he hadn’t imagined it would.  By four, Carlos was dragging his feet, turning his head to look for numbers and signs to find his way back to Jake’s apartment. The door opened to his touch, left unlocked because Jake had insisted that it was fine, and Carlos let himself in.

Five rolled around, though, and the relaxed posture that he had adopted on the couch became something else. The tension from the morning bled back into his shoulders as five became five-fifteen, five-thirty coming soon after.  The apartment was empty, apart from his own presence, and the longer that he sat there the more that Carlos fought the urge to grind his teeth together.

Time bled into six, and he pushed himself up from the couch where he had waited just as an echo of bright pain appeared along the line of his back.

He felt himself slip away in swift response as he threw the door to the apartment open, and Cougar dove down the stairs as quickly as his body would allow.  There was another blow, phantom pain along the arch of his shoulder, and Cougar’s jaw clenched tight, teeth catching on his tongue.  It was impossible to tell if anyone attempted to get in his way, for he pushed through every obstacle as if they weren’t there, plowing down the route to the restaurant, that he had memorized.

Darkness had started to fall between the tall buildings; the sun lost from sight behind their high peaks and their catwalk arches. Long, dripping shadows replaced the golden light, and the neons flared to life at the mouth of the thin alley. The last left turn was cut short though, as Cougar took a step back, straining to hear the sounds that came from the opposite direction, deeper into the darkness.

There it was, a cry of anger that was unmistakable, and he crept forward into the darkness.  It was cool, where it enveloped him, causing his skin to tighten against the chill and his shoulders to draw up.  The ground was wet here, the wall damp beneath his fingertips, and his skin clung to it as he moved along its harsh surface. The air was dank, flavored with watered down spices and musk, and with mold from the dark corners that never saw daylight.

Body pressed flush against the wall, Cougar turned his head to gaze around the corner, and his world narrowed down to a single strip of neon light.

There were three of them; large men with builds that he knew came from extensive training and that he had seen before, in the enforcers that the English kept around.  Tall men with broad, hard faces, fat hands and biceps wider than his own thigh. They were sure of themselves in their stature, knew how intimidating they were and used that to their advantage in the way that they knew best; in brute strength that ground large fists into pliable flesh and in deep grunts that filled the air.

There were three of them, and Jake looked so impossibly small within their midst.

He didn’t immediately have it within himself to move from where he stood, hidden, because the scene was not what he had expected and nor was he prepared for it in the slightest.  The men were larger than Jake and that should have been the end of it, of course, because his lover was just a teenager; thin and wiry, still unsure of his limbs. The young man that stood before him then, though, trapped within the crowd of bodies, was anything but unsure and obviously knew every inch of his physique and how to use his slighter, suppler frame to his advantage.

The neon light was red, slicing through the darkness and washing the images in front of him with a violent tinge. Jake ducked to the left, feigned to the right for another punch and, as arms went out to grasp at him, he used the way that one man had bent forward to his own advantage. Clamping an arm around the man’s neck, he hoisted himself up, slamming his palm into the underside of the man’s nose in a vicious uppercut; the momentum he gathered serving useful in driving one boot clad foot hard into the jaw of another. The large man that he held by the neck swayed forward, all of his body weight being used against him as he reeled from the blow to the face. The blood that ran from his broken nose was black in the lighting, and Jake used his opponent’s clumsiness to carry his slighter weight downwards, bringing the man with him to slam his face to the concrete ground.

The cracking sound that followed was harsh, loud in the darkness, and Cougar had no time to dwell on it, enraptured instead by the way that Jake threw himself at the next opponent, fingers firm on the man’s face while his knee found it’s home in the tender flesh of his groin. A scream filled the air, more shrill than he had thought such a large man would be capable of and, when the man’s head reared back, he could see the way that Jake’s pointer fingers had wormed into the open cavities at the inner corners of the man’s eyes, no doubt crooking and pulling; exposing the sensitive workings of his sinuses to pressure they weren’t prepared for.

With a crude grasp, Jake swung his arms sharply, slamming the man’s head to the wall while kicking a foot out, switching his weight into the chest of the man he had previously kicked. The second man went down with a string of curses, holding his head while blood streamed from his broken nasal cavity and the corners of his eyes, like macabre tears. The words that he gabbled were far from Standard, though they weren’t English or Russian as far as Cougar could tell, and that wasn’t what he had thought they would be, far from anything he had expected – he had assumed the assailants to be _English_ , as a neurotic sort of worry had settled into his bones after the altercation with the _English_ the night before, after the way he had threatened to turn them over to the _Russians_.

Jake wasted no time though, paid the yelling man no mind, and set his feral self upon the only assailant that remained standing.  His body was slighter but more limber, by far, and it showed in the way that his fingers wrapped around the man’s throat and he tensed for movement.  Using the chokehold that he had, he swung himself up, body turning midair and his legs hooking through the hollows of the man’s underarms, cutting his victims range of motion in half.  Cougar could only see their profiles from where he hid, the way that Jake’s fingers pulled at the man’s face, how the brute stumbled with pinwheeling arms and loud cries in a language foreign upon his ears.

The savage, fevered grin upon Jake’s face was just as impossible to mistake as the sharp, splitting sound the man’s neck made when his head was wrenched too far to one side.

His large body slumped, dropping to the ground like the dead weight that he was, and it was with lethal elegance that Jake untangled himself, mid fall. He landed on his feet, glasses askew and his skin stained with black blood in the vivid red light.  The only man left was still spluttering to himself, head held in his hands as he tried to crawl away, and then Jake caught him by the collar as if he were a child, pulling him upright; then the boy’s words were spoken with a calm that contradicted his previous actions, and the chill that settled upon Cougar’s skin was warranted.

“I told you to get the fuck off my land, _didn’t I_ , but you just didn’t listen, not even when I offered to give you a head start.”

The man was blubbering, a mess of blood, snot and tears of pain that lost themselves in the red that dripped from his eyes.  His head rocked when Jake shook him, and his cries turned sharper for a moment before his words began to make sense.

“Ve vas juz folloving _ordarz_!”

The sound that crawled from Jake’s throat was one of disgust, deep and rumbling, unlike anything he had previously heard from the boy. Soul marked, stained fingers pulled at the man’s hair, forcing his head back, and Cougar watched from his place against the wall as Jake proceeded to pet the man’s face almost gently.

“Go tell your boss that the _Táng_ isn’t interested in dealing with the _Netherlands_ , before I change my mind and kill _you_ , too.”

He released his remaining prey with a sharp shove, and the man fell back with a cry, already starting to crawl away as best he could.  Jake wasn’t watching him though, his body had already turned in Cougar’s direction, and his glasses glittered like flares under the red neon light. One hand went out, those ink marked fingers reaching into the darkness, and Cougar’s eyes widened even as he answered the silent call, stepping out of the shadows.

 “Come on, Carlos, I won’t hurt you.”

 His lover’s words were pitched to be soft and soothing and they were, to a point. There was only so much calming that Jake could do though, when his body was awash with blood and fluids not his own, and when two dead man lay at his feet; his fingers were warm, though slick with wetness and blood, and Cougar took them within his own, body trembling slightly in recognition of his mate’s actions.

Carefully, as if he were some precious thing, Jake swiped his thumb over the crest of his mate’s cheek, and Cougar closed his eyes at his touch.  There was blood there now, he felt it stained across his skin just as the marks on his arm stained his soul, and he bit his tongue in response. It should have bothered him, how much that touch settled him, even after seeing the things that Jake had done and yet, he found himself more relieved at the sight of his lover mostly unharmed, save for the bruises that he could feel echoed on his own skin.

Jake’s words were spoken quietly against the curve of his lips, the younger boy sighing quietly in the night.

“I didn’t want you to have to figure it out this way, but you’re just too curious for your own good, aren’t you?”

He clearly didn’t expect a response, not from the way that he brushed his mouth over the jut of Cougar’s jaw, tipped his hat down over his dark eyes. Instead, he held his lips there for a moment, long enough for them to calm the racing of both of their hearts, and then Cougar was being pulled gently away from the bodies and the bath of red light, back into the darkness from which he had come.

“Seems we won’t be getting home for a few hours yet, Carlos. I really didn’t want to do it this way, because everything just gets so messy, and I would have rather put this off for a few more days at least.”

After a moment, he found his own tongue, and the words that burned there didn’t seem enough.

“ _Amante_?”

He could see the curve of Jake’s smile on the profile of his face, the way it fattened his cheek and crinkled the corner of his eye behind his glasses. Cougar could see it, and that alone made him feel worry, because it was no joyful tilt to his lover’s lips. Jake looked exasperated, exhausted even, and maybe more than a bit sympathetic.

“I’m going to have to introduce you to the family now, Carlos.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, mega delay chapter wise, and I'm sorry for that. It's going to be like that for a little while, bc while its summer, I'm also going into my senior year of university, and I now work 40 a week, so! Lots of work, little time to do things.  
> My beta is a beautiful woman who keeps pushing me though, god I love her, awesome lady.  
> Let me know what you think?

The blood on Jake’s skin stood out in a stark contrast to the way that his fingers gently cradled Cougar’s own. His skin was warm to the touch, as he pulled the Mexican man along with a simple tug and a few sighed words.  Where it had cooled on his skin, the blood was tacky, just as black in the dark shadowed lighting as it had been in the neon.  Jake didn’t seem bothered though, not by the drying wet stains upon his skin nor the bruises on his flesh, and so Cougar didn’t allow himself to dwell upon them, either.

Except, there was a sharp tremble that grew, that wracked its way through his muscles, and a cold ache within his bones. His head throbbed, his tongue felt thick, and it was so horrifyingly easy to just follow the boy before him. Where Jake led him, he would follow and, even though the acid feeling in his gut burned like betrayal, Cougar went after him without hesitation or question.

Regardless, his gut roiled, his blood boiled; there was something so incredibly wrong about the feeling of his body being pulled, of him _following_ …

Jake’s fingers soothed his own, tracing blindly over the flesh of his soul bands.  It was comforting, grounding, the way that the other man held onto him as they moved through the darkness, where the neon lights and the golden bright lanterns couldn’t penetrate. He trusted Jake with his life, just as much as he did with his heart, and the truth of that would no doubt be something that wrecked him, in the end.

“Everythin’ is gonna be just fine, alright? All you gotta’ do is stay with me.  Ain’t nobody gonna question you or look at you funny.”

The words sounded loud in the darkness of the narrow alleyway, before they became lost under the dark, dank air. Cougar nodded though, choosing to accept them for the promise he hoped they were, and his fingers flexed around Jake’s in response. That didn’t seem to be the right answer though, because Jake stopped, turned and pulled until they were facing one another.

The hand that didn’t hold Cougar’s own cupped the edge of his jaw, thumb pad soothing against the crest of his cheekbone, twisting him until he held Jake’s eyes, steady and sure.

“You tell me if they do, you got that? I don’t care if someone so much as sneezes in your direction; they make you feel uncomfortable, you tell me. Because I’ll know, just as much as you knew that I was in shit back there in that alley, I’ll _know_ if you lie to me, Carlos.”

Eyes narrowing, he stared at the thin boy, with his blood-black stained skin and his hooded green eyes.

“It isn’t wise to give me orders, _amante_.”

“Carlos, _please_.”

After a moment he nodded, taking the boys words for what they were, finding a sort of faith in them that he hadn’t anticipated.  That seemed to be enough for Jake, judging from the way that the tension bled out of his shoulders, and his lips quirked up into a half-smile. The pressure of Jake’s mouth against his own was familiar, and he leaned down into the contact, to savor it for however long the feeling stayed.

It wasn’t long, in fact, because Jake pulled away almost as soon as Cougar felt himself relax, and pushed open the door that stood behind them.

Bright light washed over them, and he was pulled forwards by a sudden tug on his arm, not given a choice on the matter, and the muscles throughout his body tensed in response. The kitchen was just as over-lit as it had been the last time he had been pulled within its walls, and the air was thick with the smell of spices and cooking meat.  Dark eyed faces stared back at him as he moved past them, their expressions just as startled as his own surely was, but the gazes only lasted a moment – though the fleeting nature of the stares did nothing to stop the way that his lips wanted to curl, his breath wished to snarl. Just as quickly as they had turned to him, the people were back to their work, chattering amongst themselves and making way for Jake to pull him through without a single question or objection.

The next door creaked when it opened; a high, metallic keening sound that rang uncomfortably in his ears, and Cougar winced at it.  Jake pulled him down a short flight of stairs, only releasing him when the door above latched shut behind them with another a click. The darkness was all they had then, dim lighting from pinprick holes in the walls casting thin beams through the air. Particles of dust danced through the small trails of light; little swaying pieces that were disturbed by the way that their bodies had sliced through the air. Against the darkness around them, the thin streaks of light and the small specks of floating dust seemed ethereal; pieces of life from another world.

The board at the base of the stairs creaked, long and low compared to the shrill cry of the door, and Cougar was given little time to pause and regroup as Jake tried to pull him over another threshold.  Instead, he twisted their fingers, grappling until he pulled at Jake in turn, yanking the smaller male against him. His own body was taut, unmoving against the uneven floorboards and the dust filled air. Holding Jake close, Cougar kept his breathing quiet, his fingers tight against the boy’s skin, and felt every breath that Jake took.

Carefully, the boy pressed a kiss to his jaw, trying to relax him.

“I promise I won’t take you anywhere unsafe.”

After another moment of standing there, keeping himself silent and still, Cougar gave a nod, carefully relinquishing his hold on the other man.

Underground, any chance at natural lighting was lost to the abyss. Instead, the lights that flickered through the room they entered were muted, painting everything in dark sepia-honey tones. The air was thick with smoke; burning wisps that floated into the air from the cherry red ends of cigarettes, collecting at the ceiling in a thick haze. The group of men that had stationed themselves casually around a pool table paused in their game, glancing up with their thin faces and suspicious eyes, before rising to their full heights slowly, hesitantly.

There were dozens of them, not just the group occupying themselves with the aborted game of pool, but around the room in general. Slender men, with dark eyes and closed off faces, and a sprinkling of women with painted mouths and upswept hair. They all watched with shrewd, knowing eyes as Jake stalked to the center of the room and, even under their cool gazes, the boy seemed to bloom. There was a power in him that had been just barely concealed since they had met, and it was still nothing like it had been only short minutes before, in the alley.

Dark, sinister, there was something dangerous about the sheer force that showed through his self control, and Cougar’s throat clicked audibly when he swallowed.

“ _Táng_ , _zhè shì shénme?_ ”

Four words, things he didn’t understand, because although his Standard was fine, his Spanish perfect, and his English great, Mandarin was a far off dream, as a language that he could understand and use like it was his own, but one of those four words was one he knew well, a title that he’d been trained to recognize, and then everything sort of slid sideways… 

It all made sense then, in a way that none of it had back in the alley. There was a difference then, listening to Jake refer to the title as if it were something he respected the same as every other Chinese. Now, as Jake addressed the silent crowd by that name, it took on a different meaning, became something else entirely.

Eyes on Jake, wide and startled, Cougar stared at his soulmate with a shock-slack mouth. That one word meant everything, changed every single detail that he thought he knew about the younger boy, while putting everything else into perspective. The power that Jake exuded when he moved; the self-possession that showed itself in every word he uttered; the way he knew the territory like he knew his own breath… and the smiles and laughter that every person seemed to offer him without any hesitation or restraint.

Jake wasn’t just an orphan in Chinese territory, Jacob Jensen _was_ the Chinese, and Cougar had never felt like such a fool.

The things he knew were a lie then, so far from whatever truth he wished he could have believed in, and Cougar felt the rage build beneath his skin.

“ _Zhè shì wǒ de línghún bànlǚ_.”

Jake’s gaze swung to him then, a little bit wild and a little bit crazed, in the dim golden light of the restaurant’s underbelly. There was something startled on his face, an expression as if he had been struck, as if Cougar himself had been the one to do something wrong. His thin fingers snapped out though, catching Cougar’s wrist, and Jake pulled him forward with a surprisingly strong grip. There was desperation there, though, an almost silent whimper under Jake’s breath, a wet sheen within his laurel eyes, and Cougar tangled their fingers together.

It should have felt wrong, to hold onto the boy with what he knew now, but it was impossible to try and treat him any differently, no matter how much he wished to. There was still the rage, the bubble of anger beneath his skin that pulled at his muscles and festered under his flesh, but it was so difficult. The Jake that stood before him, tall in front of his crew and with a glint in his eyes, was the same Jake that had yawned wet and slow against his throat at indecent hours in the middle of the night. This was the same Jake that had pulled him through the crowds of Chinese people with a laugh and an innocent intent to fill Cougar with as much food as he could find.

So Cougar pulled Jake’s hand up confidently, possessively, brushing his lips over the bent soul-stained knuckles before his face, and caught the relieved smile that he got in return.

“ _Tā bùshì zhōngguó rén!”_

That was outrage on someone’s breath and in the wide, windowless room, the sound was explosive. His gut seized at it, the muscles in his arm tightened, and Cougar gave a sharp squeeze to Jake’s hand.  The boy went easily with it though, still watching him with that same, hopeful look, and didn’t even fight the harsh treatment in the wake of Cougar’s discomfort.

Instead, he turned his gaze back to the rest of them, lips pulled back in the same snarl that he’d showed previously in the alleyway. A few of the watchers slunk back, including some older looking members who had thus far kept their lips pressed together and who watched him with questioning dark eyes. It was the younger ones who voiced complaints that he didn’t understand, speaking in harsh tones that burned against his skin.

_Wǒ shì zhèlǐ de lǐngdǎo zhě, wǒ zuòle guīdìng. Dāng wǒ shuō zhège rén shì wǒ, nǐ wǒ tiǎozhàn?” _

Jake released him, for long enough to smack a fist against his own chest where his heart beat, glaring at his challenger. His fingers pulled at the front of Cougar’s shirt then, and he went willingly with the motion. Something about the look on Jake’s face, the savage possessiveness in his voice, made Cougar decide against fighting him

Vaguely, he realized that this was a territorial thing, but that _he_ was the property at stake, rather than land or money.

The thin Chinese man narrowed his eyes, and a low sound started within his throat. Brows furrowing, Cougar watched for only a moment, before tipping his head to the side and shutting his own eyes, just in time to feel the hot sensation of spit platter against his cheek. Flinching at the feeling of it, he brought his free hand up and scrubbed it away from his skin with the sleeve of his borrowed shirt, and a clicking sound forced his eyes open.

Beside him, Jake had taken the gun from the belt of one of the women beside him, and the sound of a bullet hitting the chamber was the only warning that the room got. Just as quickly, he leveled the gun in the direction of the man staring spitefully at him, and pulled the trigger. His arm jerked, the sharp scent of gunpowder filled the air, and Cougar watched carefully impassive as a bullet drilled into the smooth space between the man’s eyes, dropping him to the ground.

The corpse was dead weight then, and the body rolled as it fell and the blood started to pool, but Jake didn’t seem affected in the slightest. Instead, he twisted the gun around, slapping it back into its holster on the woman’s belt, and she only moved away once it’d been given back. Her head dipped down, but there was no way to disguise the flash of a smile that pulled at her carmine painted lips.

“Anyone else have a problem, with my soulmate?”

His Standard was thick, heavily accented and far more difficult to understand than it should have been. Jake’s entire body was tight with a type of tension that Cougar hadn’t seen in him before, his frame nearly vibrating with it, but the look on his face was harsh, controlled. It was only then that Cougar remembered the blood on Jake’s skin, caught it in the way that the sepia lights glared off of the lenses of his glasses while Jake addressed the room.

“No, _Táng_.”

Their voices were a chorus of guttural Standard, words that sounded rusty from disuse, and it was unsettling, to watch the blankness of their faces and hear the dull refrain of their words. None of them seemed bothered by the body on the floor, by the growing pool of blood and the sharp stench of gunpowder that lingered, crisp in the air. That man could have been one of their brothers, perhaps a lover, and he’d no doubt been a friend, since he had just minutes before been within the group.

Fingers curling around Jake’s, Cougar stared down at the corpse for a moment before looking up. Tilting his head, Cougar gazed at the silent crowd past the brim of his hat, the only armor that he had thought to bring with him, and caught the way that they carefully watched him back. Chin up, shoulders straight, he realized he had nothing to fear from them, with or without Jake.

“That was a sloppy shot, _amante_.”

There was no point in fear; if they wanted him dead then he would be, by now.

Jake’s next words were spoken around a bubble of laughter, and Cougar’s lips fought to quirk.

“Good. This is Carlos Alvarez; until recently, he was a hit man for the _English_.”

A quiet murmur broke out in the gathered crowd, though their lips barely moved. Still, they watched him with their dark eyes and their solemn expressions, as if he had done some grievous wrong. None commented on the body on the ground or the blood that had touched their shoes, and he assumed that meant that he was to ignore that, too.

Resisting the urge to lick his lips, Cougar instead turned and gazed at Jake, just enough that the boy filled more than the edges of his periphery. In response, he saw the curl to Jake’s lips, the grin that stole across his face, and everything about him now was predatory, and it all made so much sense. Tipping his own head, Jake nodded, as if he had found something he approved of.

“Good. Someone is going to need to find him a name, since Carlos works for the _Chinese_ now.”

Brows rising, he gave Jake a narrowed stare, and the boy just grinned at him wickedly in response.

“Don’t you worry, _Zhànshì_ I take care of what’s mine.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, so, new chapter! And something I've never done before, so we're going to just put this here and see what you all think about it? Yeah, that sounds about accurate! Enjoy and tell me what you think, please!  
> In other news, my beta is a cheeky thing, and oh, I love her to pieces, this woman I swear.

It was a rare experience, but there were actually times when Cougar marveled at his own self-restraint.

This was one of those times: the impromptu meeting of the _T’ang_ seemed to last for hours. It was difficult to shake the caged feeling that came over him, stemming from the lack of windows and the dim lighting within the wide, low-ceilinged room. The quiet roar had overtaken the gathered crowd once more, as if there had been no interruption to begin with, the only disruption coming in the way that Jake had left him abruptly to pull two members aside, but their conversation had been lost under a flurry of sharp Mandarin.

His feeling like a trapped animal aside, he had managed to remain fairly pleasant, if distant and detached, and he kept his trepidation masked and to himself even after Jake collected him to leave.

The walk back to the apartment had been silent, through as quiet a night as Chinese Territory could ever manage. Life pulsed on around them, from the color of the bright neon lights to the crush of people that parted for them like waves as they walked. Nothing was still; neither the people in the stands where they worked, nor the civilians who busied themselves laughing and chattering in the florescent darkness.

He kept his tongue caught sharp between his teeth, and it was with a careful eye on his companion that Cougar meandered up the apartment stairs. There was a struggle within him then, to keep the tension from his shoulders, the twist from his lips, because he could feel it simmering there, just beneath the surface; the rage had turned into something else, something just as dark. It itched below his skin, sent a crawling sensation through his nerves, and his fingers curled to fists even as he kept them to himself.

Before him, Jake waved them into the apartment with a simple _click_ , the door still unlocked.

Inside, the lights were off; Cougar hadn’t bothered to turn them on when he had returned there, hours prior, and so the living room was awash in slants of neon. Pulses of golden light flickered through from a few of the hanging lanterns that floated on their lines outside, and they cast a soft glow across Jake’s face. He looked so young, so gentle in that moment, with the gilt light upon his features and a hand rubbing wearily at the side of his face and, as Cougar watched him, a sudden violent swell of emotion rose up in him, the desire to _wreck_ him. ~~~~

Waiting barely long enough to blink, to hear the rustling sound of Jake’s fingers in his hair, Cougar burst forward in a flurry of motion.

Hand striking out, his thick fingers caught Jake by the soft skin just beneath his jaw, and he held tight as he let the movement swing them both around, slamming Jake into the hard surface of the door. His windpipe was a delicate thing, held beneath the pressure of the fleshy bridge between Cougar’s thumb and index finger. His breath vibrated there, caught and thinned under Cougar’s hold, and the movement of his chest was cut off by the hard pressure of a forearm.

Locked against the door with his feet off the ground, Cougar expected the younger man to respond with violence, an outburst to match his own. Jake was power; he was grace and murder all coiled together in a fair skinned bundle. His tongue was quick-silver and his eyes were glimmering green; things that surely got him out of as much trouble as they got him into, and they would be the death of him, if Cougar was careless.

Under his touch, he felt the rumble as a quiet moan climbed up the boy’s throat.

Pausing, his dark eyes went wide, watching the boy where he had him pinned. Only for a moment though, long enough to see the flush that crawled up Jake’s skin, to feel the soft pant of his breath. There was an arching to his body, a subtle curve that pushed him closer to the crushing contact, and wasn’t that a pretty thing?

For Jake to think that he would get off so easily, Cougar… Cougar felt disappointed.

Tightening his grip, his ears filled with the sharp sound of Jake’s breath stuttering and his own lips twisted into a sharp display of teeth. The golden lights flickered outside, cloaking them in brilliant neon and cutting shadows, and it was enough to warp the image below him. For just a moment, the soft skinned creature that he held at his mercy looked like something else, something powerful and sinister caught between his fingertips. That was perhaps a truth, though, for Jake would never be some delicate thing and he knew it just as well as the boy beneath his touch did. There would be no contact between them, no harsh presses nor bruising bites if Jake weren’t in the mood to allow it.

“You lied to me.”

His words were quiet things, spoken on the swell of a breath, but they seemed so loud in the bubble of silence that the two of them had created. Beneath him, Jake squirmed, trying to brace his feet on the flat of the door for support. He slipped though, couldn’t catch himself, and the drop of his weight brought his body down hard against Cougar’s grasp.

“It was for your own goo-“

Grasp tightening, Jake’s breath left him in a gasp of air, and the heat of it curled against Cougar’s cheeks. The boy’s fingers tried to pull at his own, at the arm across his chest, but the angle was wrong and his air was evidently too little, for his motions were almost weak. Against his thumb, Jake’s pulse fluttered, rabbit-quick and strong, and it sent a rush through him, the idea of holding the boy’s life within his fingers.

Leaning forward, his nose nuzzled a line from Jake’s jaw to his temple, the soft down of hair there. His skin was fever-hot, burning when Cougar pressed an open mouthed kiss to the curve of his forehead, and a guttural sound spilled from the boy’s lips. In response, his own curled, just enough that it could be felt against the others skin.

“It isn’t wise to lie to me, _mi amor demonio_.”  

Tilting his chin up, Cougar nipped at the flesh that was within reach; reveled at the way Jake flinched under the touch. “Just because I bear your mark does not make me some tame pet that you can leash.”

Those thin fingers clawed at him, and his heart beat with affection in response.

A choking sound fell from the boy’s lips then, and his eyes were wide and wet, but there was something hard to them, challenging and leering in the way that only Jake could ever be. He was being given an allowance here, a chance to take what he wanted without the fear of his advances being too brutal or unwanted, and Cougar didn’t remember a time he had ever felt more thankful.

Shushing quietly down at him, Jake was trembling beneath his grasp as he loosened his grip. Cougar felt the sudden expansion of the boy’s chest, the way he greedily took in the air that he had been denied, as if it may be the last that he would receive. Soothing his thumb across the slender line of his throat, Cougar listened to the way that he gasped.

“I-I’m sorry,”

Brushing his lips across the boy’s brow, he nipped once more, catching the skin sharply and feeling the way that Jake reeled back in response.

“You aren’t, but you will be. _Callarse_ , you’re alright,” Jake had begun to cry,  but it was impossible to know if the boy had even realized it, though there was little doubt that the tears upon his cheeks arose from the same humiliation that burned a blush into his skin. The well of water within his laurel eyes had spilled over, and hot tears dripped down his cheeks. They splashed against Cougar’s wrist, slid down his skin, and he tilted his head, dark eyes watchful. “I’ll let you make it up to me.”

His soul mate looked so pretty, with his skin flushed and his eyes shining damply.

Pulling his hands back, Cougar took the support that he had offered away, and watched as Jake crumpled at his feet. Bent over, golden head bowed, his body heaved with each breath he took, full and complete like they hadn’t been since the door had shut behind them. Watchful, his dark eyes covetous in the dim lighting, Cougar felt his control slipping even further from him with an almost welcome rush of sensation across his spine, and then leave him completely on a sigh…

Offering the only gentle touch the boy would receive for some time, Cougar reached out, fingers carding through blond hair. The strands were short, just long enough to grasp, and he scratched the blunt of his nails across his scalp in a soothing fashion for a moment.  Just as Jake leaned into it though, his grip tightened, and the gentleness was gone with a harsh pull that caused the tendons in his inner arm to stand at attention.

Another sharp cry filled the air, though this one sounded damp and dull in comparison to the first. Pulled up to his knees, Jake’s mouth was pressed with bruising force against the half-flaccid bulge in Cougar’s jeans. The cry he had tried to give had been cut short and, instead, his tongue was pressed tight to the denim, teeth caught near the zipper.

The boy growled then, low in his throat, and wide, wet eyes stared up at Cougar in the dark.

“Use your mouth like you mean it, _amante_.” His words were chosen carefully, despite the rage that still roiled under his skin, for the situation he had walked them into teetered on a delicate line. His muscles clenched, body eager and burning, but he held himself still, save for the hand on the back of Jake’s head.

The anticipation was for naught; Jake tipped his head back enough to press a kitten lick to the seam of denim, and Cougar gave a groan of his own.

Fingers tangled in that hair and he held tight as the boy shifted his stance, rising a bit higher on his knees and spreading his thighs. His teeth were gleaming in the dance of neon and soft sepia gold, and they pulled deftly at the harsh, thin metal of Cougar’s zipper, edging it down. The lack of constricting pressure was immediate, and Cougar sighed, fingers giving a petting stroke to the back of Jake’s head.

“Good boy…”

Below him, the younger man let out a quiet sound, something between a whimper and a groan, and levered himself back up to tug at the button with his teeth. It gave way after a moment of struggle, and the denim instantly sagged on his hips without its hold. The boy nuzzled at it with his nose, caught it with his teeth to pull at it more, enough that the band of his briefs was visible.

Even through the fabric, the first ghost of hot, humid breath across the head of his dick was enough to have him groaning. Dark head rolling for a moment, breathing through his teeth, his grip was tight. Already, he knew there would be bruises forming on the soft skin of the boy’s throat, and Cougar licked his lips.

“Make me come like you mean it, and I’ll let you get off your knees.”

A sound of protest filled the air, but Jake gave no struggle, and so he forced the boy’s face closer. The open cavern of his mouth fitted over the side of Cougar’s cock through the thin cotton fabric, and the older man sighed. Nails catching at the delicate skin on the back of Jake’s head, he gazed down at him with burning eyes.

“Don’t test me, Jacob.”

Their eyes met for a moment, and that bright green was still defiantly gleaming, his cheeks flushed ruddy in the shifting light. He conceded though, with the angle of his head and the use of his tongue and teeth to pull the elastic band of the briefs out of the way. The dark head of Cougar’s cock grazed against his cheek, leaving a sticky trail behind, but Jake didn’t seem to notice, too intent on tucking the edge of the band beneath the weight of his balls as neatly as he could.

Silent, Cougar watched as those green eyes found his again for just a flash before they settled, intent on the curve of his length. Head tipped, mouth open, Jake pressed his lips against the side of it in a filthy, open mouthed kiss at the base. Swiping his tongue, movement deliberately slow, he dragged himself up, mouth leaving a wet path along the flesh that had just begun to throb.

At only half mast, the heavy weight of it caused the head to angle down, and the boy had to spread his thighs to sink low enough to wrap his lips around him. Suckling there, it seemed there was less intent to pull an orgasm from him, more of a means to lengthen his pleasure, and Cougar felt himself filling. With a low groan, he tilted his head back, lips pressing together tightly.

The sudden sensation of that wet heat _sinking_ on his cock had that groan dropping into a quiet moan, and he snapped to awareness to try and witness the sight before him. It was worth it; the image of Jake’s eyes sharp with concentration, mouth spread wide and tight around the girth of his hardening length. Already, there was spit slipping over the corners of his lips, dribbling down to his chin, and Cougar twisted his fingers more tightly in the blond hair.

Pushing, rolling his hips in a movement of selfish pleasure while pulling the boys mouth father down, a muffled gag filled the air, and Jake’s hands finally went up then. Digging viciously at the bunched up denim on his thighs as a silent reminder, the boy held on as another sound escaped from his throat, just as wet and thick as the last one had been. Lips pressed nearly flush against the flare of flesh where his penis met his pelvic bones, Jake’s mouth was hot, and his body jerked beneath Cougar’s hold. Keeping him still though, he reveled in the feeling of the boy swallowing down his member; at the reddened rims of his bright eyes.

It was only when another gagging sound filled the air that Cougar pulled back, watching intent on the way that Jake’s entire body shuddered with his sharp inhalations. His blond head still bent, the pre-come soaked head of Cougar’s cock smeared across his forehead, and Jake’s wiry body shuddered with his sharp gasps for air. A thin cough fell from his lips then, the heat of it peppered across the floor, and Cougar tightened his grip, pulling once more.

“Like you _mean_ it, _amante_.”

Glaring up at him, eyes wild and wet, Jake bared his teeth in challenge. His own lips twisting into a snarl, Cougar bent, just enough to clench his fingers around the width of his throat. Green eyes went wide, and those hands gripped his thighs once more, grasping for his cock even as plush lips fell open.

Satisfied, Cougar released his hold and watched with rapt attention as Jake went to work.

There was no hand on the back of his head this time, no hair between Cougar fingers and no contact between them save for the wet scald of Jake’s mouth. Instead, the boy needed no guidance, took his length as far into his mouth as he could before he gagged, and swallowed. Throat working around the length of it, a low moan crawled from his diaphragm, causing the pink of his tongue to vibrate against the base of Cougar’s dick.

A quiet moan fell from his own lips then, teeth loosening their clench, and he flexed his hips forward; slicking sweat across the round of Jake’s glasses.

Jake hummed around him, made eager from that one moan it seemed, and Cougar swore as what he had considered a good blow job turned into something else. Bracing his hands on the door, his body trembled with the sensations of it, and dark eyes stared down at Jake in the dim lighting. Green eyes looked up at him, just a flash of color under a flare of yellow light from the window… ~~~~

Panting, hips rolling, Cougar stared down with pleasure-narrowed eyes. Quiet moans fell from his lips, hushed sounds beneath his breath that were nearly lost under the obscene sounds that tumbled from Jake’s own. He felt himself shuddering as Jake’s fingertips traced across the weight of his balls, and his eyes went wide at the rush of heat that dropped suddenly into the base of his spine.

“Jake!”

The word was meant as a warning, a guttural cry of sound, but the boy took no heed of it, suckled harder, and took Cougar deeper into his throat. With a low Spanish oath, his hips humped into the boy’s face, and his head tilted back with his cry as he came. Hat tumbling from his head, it hit the ground with a low thump, and his dark hair fell back without it there to keep it tamed.

He felt those lips curl around him, a smarmy bastardization of a smirk, and the viciousness that had fallen to a simmer beneath his skin reared its head again.

Grappling at those slender forearms, he pulled Jake up sharply, causing the boy to release him from his mouth with a line of drool. Cougar used his own weight to lift and pin boy to the door, the length of his thighs braced over his biceps where he held him in the air. Caught tight, Jake’s legs dropped and wrapped around Cougar’s hips, the boys own tilted to allow for the angle of his body being bent and his weight supported completely. Fingers working furiously at the wet front of the boy’s jeans, he pulled at the zipper, listened to the tense sound it made as it was nearly ripped from its track.

“Can’t get enough of me, can yo-“

The hand that wasn’t pulling Jake’s cock free from his boxers snaked up, elbow caught near the curve of one slender hip while those digits had a different destination in mind, all the while forcing the boy’s position to curve even further. Fingers wrapping tight around his throat once more, Cougar bared his teeth at his soul mate in a snarl, delighted in the way the boy lost his expression of arrogance in exchange for something more wide eyed. Grip tight around him, Cougar gave a sharp tug, and felt the delicate shift beneath the pressure of his thumb as Jake tried to gasp.

“I could kill you, just like this…”

The cock in his hand twitched, and the boy’s hips didn’t have the leverage to thrust forward, but Cougar knew they would have, if they could. Instead, Jake’s fingers scrambled, wrapping around Cougar’s wrist and holding on, as if he could remove the nearly crushing grip the man had on him. Thumb sweeping over the weeping head of his cock, Cougar pressed closer to the wall, trapping the young blond where he was suspended.

“…press just a bit harder, cut off your air completely.”

Jake’s green eyes were wide. The lights from the window made him seem sunken, body gaunt in the flashes of neon that had now almost replaced the golden lantern hue.

Movements quick, he stripped the boy’s length with the efficiency of a man with experience, and watched with rapt attention as the younger man trembled apart under his touch. Back arching, the movement of pleasure pressed his throat harder into Cougar’s hand, and he took it like the offering it was, tightening his grip for long enough to feel Jake’s muscles spasm. Gaze dark and menacing, Cougar’s expression was flat, watchful where the boy gasped weakly for breath, where he tried to hump into the pressure around his dick.

It was only once his eyes threatened to roll back that Cougar released his hold on his throat, and pressed open mouthed kisses to the crest of Jake’s cheeks instead. Beneath his grasp, the boy shook into a violent orgasm, his head tipping back and a pained scream spilling from his abused throat. Teeth sharp, Cougar nipped at the taut skin of his collarbone, and continued to stroke his softening cock even when Jake started to hiccup from sensitivity.

“I am your equal, not your pet, Jacob.”

His touch gentled then and, carefully, Carlos lowered the boy to his feet. Mindful of the way his muscles would have tensed from his cramped position, he supported most of his slighter weight, and softly brushed the sweat-slicked strands of his blond hair back. Pressing delicate kisses to his brow, his cheeks and panting lips, Carlos gave a quiet hum.

Jake’s fingers clenched in the back of his shirt; tight enough that Carlos could feel the bite of his nails on the skin of his back.

“I apologize if I was too rough, _amante_.”

Held close and secure against his front, Jake’s head bumped his chin when the boy shook it, a slurred sound falling from his lips. He was still shaking; small, jerking motions that came from the finer muscles in his body, and Carlos carefully petted at his shoulders, his sides. He pressed another kiss into his damp hair, and felt Jake sigh.

“N-no. I… I deserved that.”

“Why do you believe that you deserved it?”

A quiet, thoughtful sound fell from Jake’s lips then, more of a rush of air than anything else. The boy nodded against him though, as his fingers stroked gently through his hair.

“I am _T’ang_ , and that means that I’m responsible for the wellbeing of anyone in my territory. But I haven’t been… looking out for you, appropriately. I lied to you, and I manipulated you, as if you weren’t even- like you didn’t _matter_ , like you aren’t my soul mate. You said you’re my equal, not my pet, and I…”

Pausing, he licked at his lips, and Carlos could feel it as his tongue caught just briefly at his shirt, pulling the cotton.

“I’ve been treating you like you’re some, some _commodity_ , rather than my equal. I understand why you needed to do that, Carlos.”

“You were scared.”

The words were muffled against the blond hair against his mouth, and he felt it rather than heard it when Jake let out a huff against his chest.

“I did need it, and I’m sorry.”

Nuzzling his temple, Cougar sighed, body buzzing with the same sort of high that he usually felt after a contract was filled. Loose limbed and content, he held his soul mate against him, and traced the bands along his arm from memory.

“ _Estás perdonado_.”

Jake went slack against him then, and a yawn fell freely from his swollen lips.

“I do love you; don’t think I’d know what to do without you anymore...”

Lips pulling up into a smile then, Carlos buried the expression in Jake’s hair, felt it like a benediction when Jake burrowed closer into his arms. The boy was warm against him, trusting in the way that he let himself go lax even after the events that had just transpired between the two of them. Tracing his thumb across where the bruises would surely form on his throat, Carlos sighed, easing the boy up into his arms.

“And I love you, but we’re going to have a long talk about this soon, _amante_.”

A low mumble was all he got in response, and Carlos shook his head, nudging the door lock into place with his shoulder, before carrying the both of them off to bed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay darlings! I did mention this would have slow updates: as much as I love writing, it sadly, doesn't pay my bills. Damn, oh well. Top it off, I've been feeling disgusting, and my poor Beta's now sick. She's a goddess though, so she'll be fine soon!  
> Apart from that, enjoy the update lovies, and tell me what you think!

In light of the things that he now knew, the soft morning glow seemed anything but gentle and sweet.

Around him, Chinese Territory had started its morning routine, just as alive as it had been throughout the night.  It was subtle, the transition from the thrumming nightlife to the bustling energy that filled the day, and he felt the rush of it along his skin. One by one, the golden lanterns flickered out in the pre-dawn light where it bounded between the reflective building faces.

Curled on the grating of the fire-escape, bundled in a borrowed sweatshirt, the window behind him was still open into the hall, and the dark blue curtains within danced in the spring breeze. One leg pulled closer to his chest while the other dangled, bare foot free to sway in the air as it pleased, and Carlos’ toes curled against the chill in the air. The sleeping pants he wore were no more his own than the sweatshirt he had pilfered from the back of the couch, but they worked against the cool, gentle wind.

Taking a slow drag from the cigarette between his fingers, Carlos stared down at the people milling below him, watching them with sharp eyes.

All their chatter now made some sort of sense, even the words that he couldn’t understand, and none of their smiles or tones seemed as simple as they had just a week before. The Chinese weren’t simple people, not now that he knew them, with his eyes opened to their words and their ways for nearly two weeks now. Everything they did had a purpose, every smile hid a threat and every word a sickly sweet promise, for he had _seen_ things now…

Since introducing Carlos to his true self, that night in the alley, Jake had held no reservations; not for the things he said or the actions that he took. The man that pressed hesitant kisses to his skin and trailed slim fingers across it slowly, as if he didn’t know if he were allowed to any longer, wasn’t the same near-child that had first pulled him out of the darkness.  Instead, Jake was burning fire bright; he was demon darkness and scorched sugar-sharp bites. He was nothing more than a boy when he slept, when his green eyes were heavily lidded and his mouth slack in slumber, but he was a monster of a man when the need arose, with a near-feral curl to his lips and a glint of blinding bright light across the burning emeralds of his eyes.

He had seen people slicked with blood that was not their own, taking a knee before Jake where the Boy-King sat in his oriental, curling ebony throne; their faces at peace while their eyes spoke of the things they had done and pride curved his lover’s lips. Just as he had seen him demand the death of one enemy, the submission of another, Carlos had seen the gentleness in Jake’s features, heard the softness to his voice, when he spoke to his people. The care that he gave them warred with the blood that stained his hands and threatened to taint the ink of his soul, but Carlos found himself drawn closer still, all the same.

Another slow drag, and the cherry-hot tip of his cigarette flared to life once more.

 _Xiǎo shīzi_ , they called him, Little Lion, with his soul ever brave and his pride forever strong.  Such a name for a boy of only seventeen, for Jake was so young; it was easy to forget at first glance just what the boy was. The face of the Chinese wasn’t even one of their own, not by blood or by birthright, and instead such an honor, the right as _Táng,_ belonged to the blue eyed bastard of another.

Strange, that the more he knew the less it all seemed to make sense; worse, even, that Carlos found he didn’t mind the madness nearly as much as he should have.

Behind him, he could hear the quiet sound of shuffling feet, bare toes against the smooth wood of the hall, and Carlos turned his head just enough to see the other man out of his periphery.  Jake was rumpled with sleep, his face scored with marks from the pillow he had acquired in the night. Still, there were traces of the previous night's orgasm still on his face, softening his cheeks and the line of his mouth with the afterglow that had yet to fade.

Humming quietly, Jake leaned the full weight of his body against the open window sill, and Carlos tilted himself back enough so that they shared the same space.  Jake smiled at him, a soft stretch of lips over teeth, and there was a hint of hesitation there, buried under the green of the boys eyes.  It only made sense, really, the anxiety and guilt Jake still obviously felt from his previous actions, and Carlos wondered how much longer such emotions would last in the other, how long it would take him to break past his new found hesitation.

“I didn’t hear you get up.”

In the growing morning chatter, Jake’s voice was nothing more than a soft spoken whisper, nearly lost on the breeze. It ruffled the short blond tufts of his hair, lifted it away from his forehead, and his expression was a wide open thing, in the stretching morning light. Reaching out, Carlos took those stained fingers within his own, and pulled just enough to press a kiss to the black ink ring around Jake’s wrist.

“You were tired.”

It was all he gave in response, for Carlos had no justification for why he himself hadn’t slept.  It had simply evaded him, lost on the same wind that carried away the smoke and ashes from his cigarette. It wouldn’t stick to his bones, hadn’t allowed him to get comfortable like he would have liked, and after only four hours of peaceful sleep, slumber had decided he didn’t need it all that much.

Jake seemed to understand though, giving a quiet, noncommittal hum below his breath. The hand that Carlos held at his face twisted so those fingers gently cupped his jaw, thumb soothing over the swell of his bottom lip. Since that night, pressed rough and fast against the front door, _Netherlander’s_ blood between them while adrenaline raced through their veins, their affection had taken a different tone.  Softer, simpler, touches more questioning than demanding; there were words where there hadn’t been any before, truth when he had only ever known lies.

For any question that he decided to ask, Carlos was given an answer; even if the honesty of them often left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Thumb held still below his lip, one of Jake’s fingers brushed the soft skin below Carlos’ ear, and the hitman felt the skin shift over the implant there.  In response, there was a tick along the sharp line of Jake’s jaw, and the boy smoothed his touch carefully along the place where the technology lay just beneath dark skin.  His throat clicked when his mouth fell open, as if he were thinking over his words before he uttered them.

Patiently, Carlos waited, content to simply sit in the dim warmth of the rising sun.

“I have friends in the _Congos_ who are more than happy to get rid of that for you, if that’s alright?”

There were no orders thus far, when he spoke to Carlos, only ever requests and suggestions.

Taking another drag from his cigarette, he watched the boy through dark lashes, the brim of his hat tipped down against the sun.  It cast shadows upon his face, made it difficult to see his eyes, and Carlos knew all of this from experience; his own comfort hardly mattered, not where such habits were concerned, because some things would never change.

“Yes.”

He could see Jake reading the things that he had left unsaid with that simple, single word. There was an understanding there, a trust that hadn’t been there before their violent interaction, and it settled against his skin like a cool buzz.  They were better already, than how they had previously been, and Carlos held faith that they would continue to flourish under their bond.  

Plush lips pursed, Jake gave a slow nod, and Carlos let out a slow exhale of smoke into the Chinese air.

-

 _Friends_ , perhaps, had been a loose term, on Jake’s part. Granted, Carlos highly doubted that the deception had been deliberate, not after the last encounter and its consequences. That didn’t actually help his anxiety though, and the sniper had the heavy, distinctive urges to either press himself into the shadows or _run_.

He had never actually interacted with the _Congos_ before, not in a face to face situation. The English had taken no interest in them, hadn’t cared in the slightest about what the African based syndicate decided to do with itself and its people, so long as they stayed out of English territory and English business. They weren't trusted enough to be used as hired guns, let alone handle the money, and Cougar had never asked for or been given a reason why not.

Racism never died.

Jake though, Jacob seemed to have no filter, no eye for the differences between himself and the man he greeted with a loud, crowing call. He clasped the man's hand within his own, pulled their torsos sharply together with a loud cracking sound. The other man mimicked his movements, their free hands going up to catch each other at the back of the head and press their foreheads together.

There was laughter on Jake's lips, coloring his face and adding light to his voice in a way that hadn’t been there before.

The familiarity between them was sharp, tangible, and Carlos found himself unable to trample down the swirl of sick green jealously that swept through his gut.  It went just as soon as it came though, for Jake glanced at him with something soft out of the corner of his eye, even as his speech started up once more. The same full mouthed tones that he’d heard from a phone call, weeks ago, were in the air again, though this time he had a name to give them, a sect to put with the syllables.

The rough conversation was short lived, finishing with an exasperated huff from the dark skinned man, and a bashful grin on Jake’s features as he drew himself back. There was pride there, though, recognizable now in the jut of his chin, the set of his shoulders, and Jake threw out a hand as if to motion to Carlos, to showcase him.  In response, he simply stood still, fingers in his pockets, hat tipped low and a subtle quirk to his lips.

Jake took it as the consent was, clever boy.

“This is Carlos Alvarez.  I’m going to assume you’ve heard of him-”

“Through the English channels, ja. Not too good at keepin’ a leash on him, total chops.”

“-he’s my soul mate,” Jake carried on, as if he hadn’t been interrupted, as if the colloquial slang that was thrown out didn’t go completely over Carlos’ head.  Across from him, the dark skinned, black eyed man watched with a sort of shrewdness that he hadn’t expected, and he resisted the urge to stand straighter. That seemed to do the trick though, because the man grinned, a bright, toothy white splash across his features, before slapping a hand on Jake’s shoulder.

“Course you know how to pick um, ou’s ravin for a para an ain’t bung of anything, if the English whinin’ right.   _Sch_ ,” His lips pulled back, a sharp, shrill sound coming from between his teeth, though it was impossible to tell if it was born from approval or disapproval.  “Couldn’t you a just found a nice stukkie for a change?”

Carlos didn’t appreciate it, the way that the other man’s words went sharply over his head, veering through one ear and out the other as if they were commonplace things.  Jake hardly noticed, from the slight grin upon his features to the shrug that shimmied across his shoulders, and Carlos felt the need to draw his own up into a defensive sort of arch. There was love on Jake’s lips though, and a smile across his face as soft as any Carlos had ever seen steal across the boys jaw.

His gaze was on Carlos then, burning green-glass fire behind the faint sheen of his spectacles.

“’Fraid not, Pooch.”

The man, Pooch, huffed, giving a shrug before he turned fully to stare at Carlos.  Assessing him in a swift fashion, the man must have approved of what he saw, because he nodded, and moved forward suddenly. Fingers out, he moved to grasp at Carlos’ head, only to be denied the contact when the sniper ducked away sharply, dark eyes narrowed behind the rim of his hat.

“Oi! None o’that,now. Want that chip gone or not?”

Watchful, Carlos tilted his head, enough that he could see Jake past the man, and watched the way understanding colored his young lovers features.

“He doesn’t know you, Pooch. He’s not gana let you touch him until you show you aren’t a threat.”

Another sharp scoffing sound filled the air, made sharp by the man’s teeth catching against his tongue. Heavy jaw setting, he shook his head, exasperation on his dark features heavy like the heat from the spring sun.  Still, his hands fell away from Carlos’ face, illuminated by the harsh light reflected on desert sands, somewhere in a place that the books said used to be called Nevada.

He held a hand out then, palm open and fingers uncurled, body language unthreatening and loose.

“Linwood Porteous, Second in the _Congos_. Locomotive Technician, usually the driver if I can help it.”

“He’s got a _thing_ for AK’s, don’t let him lie to you.”

Jake’s voice carried with a bit of a laugh on the breeze and, before him, the other man sneered; an embarrassed sort of pull to his full lips. His fingers flexed, dark gaze cutting to where Jake stood, and there was only humor in his tone, but Carlos understood him all the same.

“It’s a healthy relationship, thank you!”

Their banter threatened to start up once more, kicked by what seemed like an old argument between them.  For some reason he knew they wouldn’t stop, not if they started up again, and Carlos had no desire to stand out in the open and listen to two men bicker. Instead, he thrust his hand out, taking Pooch’s fingers between his own.

Reflexively, the man pulled him forward into the same sort of embrace that Jake had been bustled into, and warmth raced through him from where their foreheads touched.  Wide eyed and questioning, Carlos pulled back as soon as he regained himself, turning enough to stare at Jake with burning confusion.  The boy just shrugged though, a quiet promise to explain later wordless upon his lips.

“If you are second…” the words were slow on his tongue, nearly muddled as he thought over them. They caught Pooch’s attention though, and Jake’s as well, when Carlos let them slip across his chapped lips. “Then who is first?”

Those dark eyes that watched him crinkled at the corners, full lips pulling back to reveal pearly teeth.

"My wife, Jolene.  She’s my _stukkie_ , and she’s in charge."  There was such pride in the man's voice, such affection and inflection that his entire body seemed to swell with it while Carlos watched.  The man rolled his head on his shoulders then, seemingly done with the pleasantries as he pulled a medical case from the bag against his hip. He shook it slightly, just enough that the contents within jingled together, and smacked his lips together.

"Now, we de-buggin’ you?"

Carlos nodded, and watched as Pooch grinned in response.

-

There was a distinct lack of white noise in his head, like all the cotton padding had been taken out from within his ears. He hadn't known before, hadn't noticed the slight muffle that had fallen over everything, he'd grown so accustomed to it in his time under the monitoring chip’s influence. The quiet buzz had become something he fell asleep to, ate to and sometimes actually listened to, when he did his job; a constant presence and reminder of the English impact upon his life.

Without it, everything seemed clearer, sharper in a way that he hadn’t known he had been missing.

With a grin on his face and a spark in his eye, Jake had let him go with a shrug and the quiet comment that there were some rather unsavory characters taking interest in Chinese territory.  Individuals, with no backing from any of the major benefactors, they were simply people who thought they could change the world in their favor, cogs bent to work against the well-oiled machine. A list of them had been left on the kitchen table, _‘I keep forgetting to take it back to work with me_ ’, and Jake hadn’t even batted an eye when it disappeared one day, though he had glanced knowingly at the empty table top.

He’d simply pressed a kiss to Carlos’ lips, slow and smooth, before telling him to have a good day and leaving in a swirl of chaotic energy.

Carlos’ body had flown then, up stairs and across rooftops, through the dripping shadows and the gritty skyline of Chinese territory: it had been hard under his feet, sleek body darting from one smooth rooftop to another slanted one, only to scramble up the surface and disappear from sight once more. The Chinese had ignored him with the same air of nonchalance that they gave Jake and the rest of the company, as if he simply didn’t exist: him with his dark hair tied tight, hat pulled over his eyes and a black guitar case slung over his shoulders, a well oiled sniper rifle carefully cradled within.

The rooftop beneath his body was cool, not yet warmed by the morning sun, as it started to break through the clouds.  A faint chill ran across his skin when he levered himself down to lay across the expanse of steel, but his body fought against it with the practiced stillness that came easily. Rifle propped, the flex of his fingers moved in time with the course of his breath, and his heart beat calmly within his chest.

Across the way, stories down, he could see the bright shock of red hair that belonged to one of Jake’s wanted men. He bolstered through the crowd, unaware of how to navigate the crush of Chinese people, caught off guard by their loud voices and their quick, jarring, jovial movements. He was far too easy to find, he with the name that Carlos hadn’t bothered learning, didn’t care to remember.

Exhaling, he pulled the trigger, watched through the scope as the man's head erupted in a shower of red-orange blood and pink-grey flesh while a wash of cool calmness slipped across his skin.  In the streets below, a few Chinese cried out, caught in the spraying carnage of what was once the man’s skull, while others simply looked on. They started to chatter instantly, moving in to inspect the body, though none bothered to lift their heads in his direction, although he could see their mouths moving.  With that, Cougar pulled himself to his feet, a sharp smile on his face and his hat pulled low as he tucked his rifle away gently in its case, fingers caressing the metal to unscrew the scope.

It was good to be back. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! So, I want to thank all of you for reading this, but the first part of the series is now at a close! Thank you for all the lovely comments, and the support- the other Loser characters will be joining in the following pieces, because Jake and Cougar are just getting started on their lovely journey of mafia world domination!  
> Comments are welcome, and I hope you all enjoy!

There was blood on his hands. His skin was tacky, wet with a sticky sort of red stain that the flesh hadn’t felt in quite some time; a brilliant, glistening crimson under the flickering neon lights.  Above him, the large, golden lanterns swayed gently from their cables, just barely touched by the crisp fall breeze that wound its way between the buildings.  The air held the promise of rain, sharp with the electric scent of ozone and life, and he tilted his face into it with a soft sigh.

All around, no one paid any heed to him, for he was just another man; just another Chinese citizen in Chinese territory, and life was good on that Tuesday morning.  His skin was awash with the blood of another, speckled with flecks of red against his sun sallow skin, and his belly was filled heavy and pleasantly warm with steamed pork buns that he could still taste on his tongue.

" _Wei_ , we must go.  You know he doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"Waiting is good for you, An Liao, it strengthens the soul."

Her small, black painted lips pulled into a pout, and the young woman watched him with impish, dark eyes.  There was a faint splatter of blood upon the oval of her cheek, a glisten of it in her long black hair, but the girl didn't seem to mind.  Instead, she flexed her fingers at him, vaguely, though he knew her well enough by now to understand the meaning to her actions, hands outstretched as if asking for his own, demanding that he hurry.

In the alley behind them, crumpled, there was the body of an Englishman, dead before he had been able to understand what had hit him.  There had been no time for pleading cries or whimpering, sniveling snuffles of fear, for the two of them had descended upon him as if he were nothing more than a child's toy, meant to be shared and broken.  He had been sent to scout, to scope out the area on nothing more than a simple reconnaissance mission: get in, and get the fuck out.

The slumbering beast that was the Chinese had started to stir and, soon, the rest of the world would be forced to notice.

"Wei," said the girl, for she _was_ a girl, just fifteen and a beautiful, budding thing that had yet to blossom into what she could truly be.  Her black lined eyes were wide upon him, cherub mouth pouted and those were her fists, balled up into tight little spheres that rested against the plains of her as yet boyish hips.  "C'mon!"

His lips pulled into a quiet grin then, just an uptick of motion that the girl easily recognized after nearly a year under his tutelage.  The long haired man shook his head at her though, Mandarin words slow and easy across his tongue, like he couldn't be bothered to talk past his molasses-drip pace. His fingers twitched though, in the customary request for her to follow him, and he went without pause into the flooded Chinese streets, knowing that she would follow.

“Fine, impatient child.”

People smiled at him as they passed by, voices raised in greeting and their fingers touching his shoulders, his arms.  They were tactile people, these Chinese, pleased to see one of their own and mindless to the blood that painted him.  They offered him food, waved their fingers at shallow dishes of tea, and simply gave him quick, chattering Mandarin words when he denied them with customary thanks.

This was his home; his comfort apparent in the way that he moved easily through the crowds.  Not a single person was jostled nor a conversation interrupted, though he gave smiles when they were required and nods when they were not, paying attention to and understanding the people around him in a way only the Chinese could.  The people parted for him just as they flexed and flowed for one another, and the streets that he led them through he could navigate with his eyes closed tight.

Behind him, An made a quiet, inquisitive sound of distraction, and his hand darted out, soulbond stained fingers snagging around her thin wrist;  dark eyes caught his, and her mouth pulled into another harsh pout, this one sharper than the last.  He pulled her away though, despite the protest sharp on her lips and amidst the laughter from the vendor she had been tempted by.

"You cannot stop to eat, even if the food _is_ curry fish balls."

"But you didn't let me eat breakfast, Wei!"

Clicking his tongue, shaking his head, his ponytail bounced slightly where it had been pulled to the back of his head.  Disapproval colored his face, pulled at his mouth and filled the chiseled hollows of his cheeks. Soon, she would learn, for she was still young and impressionable so there was much he had to do before she would be ready to carry the name of the _Jiātíng_.

"That is hardly my fault.  At what time do we begin training every morning?"

She turned sullen then, with her dark hair loose and luscious around her shoulders, and her eyes cut away, back to the steaming foods behind them and, with her porcelain face turned away, he could see the thin slice along her cheek where the man's nail had caught her.  Grasping her face with his free hand, he tilted her further to inspect the wound, eyes narrowed upon it.

"Four, but that is so _early_!"

He shrugged, ignoring her in favor of turning her face the other way, lifting her hair to inspect her flesh despite the people around them.

"Cougar!"

"Ah, none of that now, niña, whining will get you nowhere with me.  You are _dǎitú_ , you do not get to sleep, you do not get to whine."  Eyes dark upon her, Cougar tilted her chin once more before finishing his sweep.  That single scratch was there, as well as a bruise blooming on one softly rounded shoulder, but the blood upon her wasn't her own, and that would do.  Tapping her nose, he tilted his head toward the mouth of an alley.  "Come.  We're almost there."

"Yes, Cougar."

There was defiance in her voice, but it was nothing she wouldn't get over.

He left her to it, turning into the familiar alley himself, and Cougar felt the press of the shadows upon him just as he felt the sensation of calm slide over him again.  Shoulders rolling, neck cracking, a deep, satisfied rumble pulled from his chest as he pushed the restaurant’s kitchen door open.

The lights were bright; flickering florescent bulbs that couldn't seem to decide if they wanted to glow bright or dim, but the cooks didn’t seem bothered by the indecision.  The loud roar of chatter filled the alley’s air for the moment that the door was open, and the sharp scent of spices and grease filled his nose.  Pans clattered, a 'wet floor' sign stood tall and proud all on its own before the freezer door, and he heard the click of the door before the alley, and its air, was lost behind them.

It was easy to move through the bustle of the kitchen, even as he heard An struggle quietly behind him, trying to get around one of the chiefs.  Cougar shook his head at her, too amused by his apprentice to be irritated by her floundering.  Cougar dropped down the stairs to the basement, keeping his lips closed against the dust puffs that danced in the light beams slicing through the air, avoiding the creaking step at the bottom.  The door opened easily, with barely a touch from his fingertips, and the scene before him was a familiar one…

The pool table near one wall was surrounded by dress shoes, combat boots and kitten heels, a few raised voices coming from the small cluster of his family.  Across the way, a few girls lounged against a long table, an interesting array of makeup, nail polish and guns stretched out between them.  One of them gave him a catcall, a crooning cry of ‘ _Wei’_ that drew his attention, and he tipped his hat to her in response to his christened name - an honor, to be so beloved within their ranks that they named him, gave him something to call his own so that he may appear as one of their own to any outsiders. He embraced the claim of it, the sense of _family_ that it allowed him to feel.

At the head of the room, regal and rapturous, wearing his golden hair like a crown, Jake sat with his legs crossed at the knee.  One elbow braced itself on the arm of his black oriental chair, while fingers pushed his glasses back up his nose.  Zhou stood beside him at his right, tall and statuesque, with his hands folded behind his back and a bland, tired expression on his sharp face.  There were subtle shadows beneath his dark eyes, and the point of his nose cast a long shadow along his chin that moved while he spoke.

Cougar couldn't hear the words that were said, but that didn't matter, as he strode closer.  All he knew was the slender curve of Jake's throat, and the way that his tongue flicked out from between his pink lips in a quick flash, the way the sepia lighting overhead caught on the glass of his spectacles and the bright fire of his emerald eyes behind them.

Jake noticed him, then, and the conversation with Zhou was lost while those green, green eyes fastened upon him.

" _Duìzhǎng_ , how was training?"

The question was made formal by the use of his title, but the soft grin the boy gave him fought that.  He smiled back, soft and subtle, but it was enough to see Jake's delighted reaction.

"We had a run in with an English scout, Táng, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle.  Jai will be proud to know that An took care of herself.”

He nodded, and beside him Zhou gave a slight bow to signal his departure before backing away.  The tall Asian man disappeared into one of the doorways behind the throne with a quiet shuffle of feet.  Back at the front entrance to the basement, Cougar could hear his apprentice finally make it in, her boots catching on the bottom step.

One of the women cooed at her, calling her over with soft, chattering tones.

“Good.  He’s already grateful that you’ve taken her on like you have.  She was horrible when you got here last spring, but we’ve made progress.  Granted, there’ll be two of you, which is just _wrong_ , but,” he broke off then, and a soft smile pulled at his lips once more.  The look on his face was love struck something that Cougar could recognize now, and in response he leaned close to brush a gossamer kiss across Jake’s forehead.  “Hi, Carlos, did you have fun while you were gone?”

“Mhm,” The sound was let out in a soft exhale against Jake’s hair, and the younger man simply leaned into the contact with a sigh of his own.  There was a softness in the air around them, perfectly staged by the aged sepia ceiling lights and the nicotine haze that hovered in the room. “ _Si_ , it has been a while since I have used my bare hands.”

Jake gave a content hum in response, seemingly satisfied with the notion that something had pleased his lover, and that felt good enough for Cougar.

“How do you feel about us waging war, then _Xīnzàng_?”

The soft smile being pressed to the silken strands of Jake’s hair turned into a chuckle then, caught between lovingly amused and darkly delighted, though the boy didn’t seem to mind.  The air was still just as dim around them, just as honey toned and thick, but everything seemed sharper in that moment, and he found that he couldn't help himself, couldn’t keep the dark glee from his voice.

“Just tell me where to shoot, _amante_.”

 


End file.
